Crazy about classic cameras

What say you on the issue below?

Oldies but the goodies: Keng Soon showing how to use a flashbulb-equipped antique camera.

IN this day and age of modern digital cameras, old film cameras continue to exude vintage charm.

Just ask Lee Keng Soon, 61, whose collection of more than 60 antique cameras would make any hobbyist envious.

Keng Soon, who has been fixing cameras since the 60s before venturing into video- filming in the 90s, inherited some of the cameras from his father Lee Ah Kim, a camera repairman and professional press and commercial photographer who designed his own cameras.

Among the ‘classics’ in Keng Soon’s cabinet is a box-shaped and aluminum casted 16mm camera Cine-Kodak from the early 1920s, a 30s-era German made Rolleiflex twin lens reflex (TLR) medium format roll-film camera, Zeiss Ikon Nettar medium format folding camera from the early 50s and View-Master Personal Stereo Camera, which is a 50s-era 35mm film camera designed to take 3D photos.

Keng Soon also boasts of having the 3kg American-made Bell & Howell (B&H) 16mm motion picture camera, with a 3-lens turret and spring driven motors that have to be wound up using a large key attached to the side.

“Combat and newsreel photographers had to become experts at quickly winding up their B&H 70 if they wanted to get a shot.

Collectors' items: Keng Soon tinkering with the mechanics of an antique camera.

“You need to hold the winding key steady using the right hand and then quickly rotate the camera’s body back and forth to wind it in just a few seconds,” he said when showing off his collection at his video-filming studio on Malacca Street in Penang recently.

Keng Soon also owns some simple devices such as a wooden pinhole camera which is lensless.

“It’s important to remember and appreciate, through these antiques, the many steps required to produce prints from shot to print,” he said.

Keng Soon also said the exceptional build, quality, durability, simple and reliable mechanics of antique cameras were extremely hard to find nowadays.

“The camera can be so solid you can knock someone cold with it.

“Some cameras even come with a lifetime warranty against failure!” he added.

Keng Soon said in recent times, there had been a revival of the classic camera design in the latest digital cameras.

He conceded that modern digital cameras were much more economical, convenient and offered great flexibility and quality.

The antique camera collection has not made Lee rich but he has no regrets.

“Cameras have been an interesting part of my family right from my father’s days as a youngster.

“In continuing the hobby, I have met a lot of friends and I think that is most important of all, “ he said.