Vlad told me I have to present myself, so I do ;-)
I'm Stephan Van den Zegel, I live in Belgium (while there is a Belgium), I'm 46, french speaking but multilingual...
I live in a big house in the woods near the city of Huy.
I'm urban planner specialised in local development programs.
As you could imagine I collect old cameras (strange idea), but I also use them to take picture (tried once to use them to make coffee, but it didn't work).
I started photography at 12 with a minolta himatic 7S, then at 14 I bought an OM1 (second hand), an om2 at 17... and I never sold any of my cameras since... I began to collect OMs (easy to collect as they have numbers... 1,2,3,4... I like series), then around year 2000 I started to collect pathologically... bought a leica M6, then a contax II with a prewar coated lens... I specialised for a while on contaxes and zeiss lenses (got 6 original Zeiss lenses in LTM)... and finally someone offered me the Mckeown... aaargh.
Russian camera wise ... I spotted and bought a fed-S, then a Zorki (50th october) and so on... you know how it goes... now I own 2 fed S, a 100/6,3 lens, a early zorki-zorki, a zorki 3M, a zorki 4... a zenit 3C with various 39mm lenses (Helios 40 0000175, jup 6, ... etc...)
What else, I have acute sense of observation and a real ability to spot the little difference that makes a collector... (a dangerous ebay addict...).
My best finds until now...
- an early M6 (my first M6 sadly stolen since) from the first 1000 batch
- a prewar 1937 T coated sonnar 50/2 on a contax (for 100€)
- a second one also for 100€ (never found one since)
- a leica IIIc red Curtains... with a wartime LTM Sonnar for 200$ (spotted the lens, bought the kit for the lens, discovered the red curtains when unscrewing the lens...)
- a fed S sold as a normal fed...for the price of a normal fed
- a sonnar 85/2 Zeiss-opton with the super rare FT coating...
- a zuiko 40/2,8 LTM sold as bonus with a kit ... leica IIIc sharkskin as new, boxed pristine Summarit (600$)
- a very rare Schallie Collée 16mm film camera (40€)
As a collector... I try to find non standard or bizarre or rare cameras... but at a decent price. But I focus on working Cameras, and I prefer camera with history and feel to pristine shelf objects.
As a daily photographer, I mainly use Leicas (M6/M3/CLE) with VC or Zeiss lenses, OMs, Salyut S...and contax (old and G2)...
Other hobbies and interests : Social history, politics (anarchist movement and anarchosyndicalism,...), minis (the real one of course), folding knifes (regional workers knifes not weapons)... songs, and singing... travel...
So that's it..
Stephan
Stephan
08/02/2008 06:33
An official welcome to you!! 