Other collecting activities?

Alas many of the 3D cameras _were_ consumer-grade P&S's. I think the better quality cameras took the prism attachments I mentioned (I've seen one for the Contaflex (couldn't afford it, though), I think Leica may have made one at one time). That's smaller than the _film_ size I want to use. Seriously, I have a few 5*4" sheet film cameras. Perhaps that's why I don't think digital cameras have even marginally useable resolution. Kodak cammeas had better have improved since the ones I've worked on, then. I can't think of a single Kodak -- including the Retina and Retina Reflex -- that's well built. I can well believe that a Kodak digital camera produces results about as good as a Kodak P&S, but I will not believe that a 3M pixel camera can produce results as good as a _good_ 35mm camera (Leica, Nikon, old Contax, etc), let alone medium or large format film cameras. I've enlarged a slide from a cheap-ish 35mm SLR up to 24*16, and it still looks pretty respectable.... You need to find a real camera shop... Perhaps I'm lucky, but I know of 4 in the local area that sell second-hand stuff, and even non-working second-hand stuff. The latter is just what I want, as it provides useful bits at a low price. There must be others like me, since I've occasionally not bought some total wreck, decided I should have done, gone back, and found it has been sold. FWIW, doing your own camera repairs is not that hard, and great fun. Keep away from electronic cameras (I speak as somebody who's not normally put off by electroics!) -- they're all custom chips on flexible PCBs, and are painful to work on. But the tools needed to fix old mechanical cameras are not difficult to get or expensive, and if you like tinkering with fine machienry, you'll actually enjoy assembling a leaf shutter (yes, I have done this...) I would recomend reading the 6 books by Thomas Tomosy. I don't agree with everything he says or does, but when you'd read them and practiced on a few cameras [1], then you'll know what you should be doing. Maizenberg's book 'All you need to know about the design and repair of Russian cameras' is worth reading too -- it has the clearest explanation of the Kiev (and therefore Contax II) shutter I have ever read. [1] Note that working on really cheap cameras -- like Kodak Instamatics -- is a painful expeerience. THe parts do not fit well, there are no proper adjustments, etc. Working on better-quality cameras (just about _any_ 35mm SLR, for example) is a lot easier. THere may be more parts, but they fit in placer properly. -tony