The Great Chinon Chimera

You're looking at the Chinon CE-4s, a humble 35mm SLR with handsome-but-undistinguished styling and a solid-but-plasticky build. In its stock incarnation, it's a functional and reliable 35mm SLR with a flexible Pentax K mount and aperture-priority auto exposure. No, there's nothing at all unusual about the Chinon CE-4s.


Until someone makes it mad.

Three brand-new Samyang/Rokinon lenses you may want to consider

We've brought in a selection of unique Samyang/Rokinon lenses. These are very good quality Korean manual focus lenses, built of metal and high-quality plastic, with smooth focusing mechanisms and aspherical elements. Compact and well-made, they can help fill gaps in your lens lineup at a surprisingly affordable price.

What to do if your camera needs repair

As you're probably aware, we sell the vast majority of our used equipment with a warranty. We do this because we believe that you should be able to rely on any equipment that you buy, old or new, to do the job it's supposed to do.

That's why we do our best to test all the equipment we receive, and provide both a return period and a repair warranty on most of our gear. 

What resolution differences mean, with examples.

Digital cameras are marketed with such a heavy emphasis on resolution and megapixels that I thought it might be educational to see what the difference in resolution actually looks like.

With this in mind, we pulled together a collection of Nikon cameras spanning more than ten years, and we shot a few examples. Read on for samples.

New This Week: June 15-20th, 2009

We've been lucky this week to find two pristine classic Nikon cameras: a late-model F Photomic, and a very nice example of the great F2.

Our Nikon F Photomic is a 1971 model, built 12 years into the F's remarkably long production run. Solid and versatile, the F was the de facto professional standard for years- until it was succeeded in 1972 by the F2. Our example is in excellent cosmetic shape, with a fully tested and accurate shutter and meter. It's priced at $349.

The Nikon F2 was a conservative evolution of the F, but managed to improve upon it in nearly every way. More heavily built, with a wider range of shutter speeds, and an even more extensive system of accessories, the F2 is still one of Nikon's finest and most usable SLRs. Our example is in great shape, cosmetically and mechanically, and includes a 50mm f2 Nikkor lens in similar shape. It's available now for $379.
This 35mm f2 Super-Takumar lens is another new arrival. Heavily built, with a huge front element, this lens looks great and takes lovely pictures. Like any M42 screw-mount lens, this 35mm f2 Super-Takumar can be used on the original Pentax Spotmatic and S-series cameras, as well as on any K-mount or EOS-mount camera- film or digital- with an inexpensive adapter (not included). This is an uncommon lens, and likely won't stick around too long. Available now for $249.
Finally, my favourite "toy" camera to come along in some time, the Golden Half is back in stock. Tiny and remarkably solid, the Golden Half is a plastic half-frame camera with fixed focus, adjustable aperture, and a side-mounted flash shoe. It's a lot smaller than you'd think, and a whole lot of fun to use. Half-frame shooting means that you double the number of pictures you can take per roll, saving on film and creating cool diptychs when you print the images together:

The Golden Half is in stock at $69, including a roll of colour film.

Check our website at www.camera-traders.com or stop into the store to see more of our inventory!

5th Annual Camera Swap Meet, May 24th, 2009

Join us on Sunday, May 24th from 10AM to 3PM for our 5th Annual Camera Swap Meet! Held in the Market Square courtyard, the Swap Meet gather sellers from Vancouver Island, the Mainland, and the Pacific Northwest for a day of camera-related fun, with plenty of collectibles and useful bits & pieces available for sale.

Clicking on the picture above will take you to the info page on our website, where you can contact us for more information or to reserve a table.

See you there!

What's new this week - February 17th, 2009

The Chamonix 045-N1 is a new, ultra-light-weight 4x5 camera built of hardwood, aluminum alloy and carbon fibre. This is a beautifully made field camera that weighs only as much as a professional digital SLR and accommodates lenses up to about 300mm- and down to approximately 90mm thanks to the upgraded "deluxe" bellows.

A leather "wrap" case, two #0 lensboards, and one #1 lensboard are included. This is an excellent opportunity to pick up one of these cameras: the waiting list for new ones is about 4-6 months long! Our price is $899.

The Rollei 35 is a classic compact 35mm pocket camera, with full manual aperture and shutter speed control. The lens is a Schneider-Kreuznach 40mm f3.5 S-Xenar, a rare variant made for only two years. Unusual for the Rollei 35, this example has a fully functioning- and accurate- lightmeter. All shutter speeds, including the low speeds, are accurate, and the camera is in excellent cosmetic shape. Our price is $139.

This 20mm f3.5 Nikkor-UD lens is an AI-converted wide-angle optic with a surprisingly huge front element (and 72mm filter thread), excellent sharpness, and a great distortion-free image. This lens will work on any manual-focus Nikon camera, as well as the D200, D300, D700 and the professional D1/D2/D3 series with full metering function (but, of course, manual focus). Our price is $229.

Finally, we have a like-new Cosina/Voigtlander 75mm f2.5 Color Heliar lens in Leica M39 thread mount. A brilliant short telephoto lens, this is a great optic for portraits: sharp, relatively fast, and easy to handle. It can be used on any Leica thread-mount camera, as well as M-mount cameras- including the Voigtlander R series and the newer Zeiss-Ikon range- with a simple adapter (not included.) This lens is like-new in its original box, pretty much without a scratch, and our price is $299.

These and plenty more new items are available on our website at www.camera-traders.com.