In the latest moths I have discovered a new world. A world where I can buy good camera equipment for almost nothing. I want to reveal a major source of inspiration for this interest, where I also find a great part of the information I need - I’m talking about the forum at www.mflenses.com. This forum and Google is my main tools when I sift through ebay in search for that special item.

 

Knowledge, inspiration, passion. The other day a user sent me a Yashica-lens for free from UK, for me to test. Now thats incredibly generous and shows the good spirit on the forum, I think. Another volunteered to help me with shipping from ebay.co.uk (some sellers refuse to ship overseas). I have also been offered a shipment of wine from italy and other things. People help each other, share information and tip, creates a network…

I think the members’ ages vary widely (many older). There are users from all over the world - Russia, Australia, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, the United States, Germany, Engand, Ireland, Thailand, Japan, Austria and so on… Skills in the english language vary, which is good because you don’t have to be afraid to make a mistake. Language and political beliefs are different, yet you can share and discuss the the interest we have in common - manual photographic equipment. The forum holds a friendly spirit, even if culture clashes happen (would be strange otherwise).

Sure, some of us are probably mental ;) With whole rooms full of camera equipment. But that’s case with all collectors. For myself, I like the gear in itself, but in the end I want to use it to take pictures. A lot of people in this forum, including me, probably has a touch of the condition “ebayitis”. A kind of new category of images that has developed on the forum, is where you take pictures with camera and coffee as motif. Take your rangefinders to town, shoot images, take a break with coffee and take a picture of the camera together with the coffee (and some dessert perhaps) :)

 

 

 

MFLenses is actually more then a forum. Members publish galleries based on lenses, tests are made, there is a watcher for prices on old lenses (write the name of you lens and get an idea of what it will cost). The user I see on other places on the Internet too (flickr.com, forum.manualfocus.org, www.rangefinderforum.com) - our interest draws us to the same websites. If you want some tip on flickr-groups to join, check out the linksection “Flickr-groups for Retro-people”.