John Reno had been an announcer at the AM radio station adjoining the photography studio where I worked. But John had a number of creative talents and he had gone on to other prusuits. He certainly had the voice of an announcer. John was also a fine marketing guru and photographer and a gazzilion other things--all cool. He was Bill's age and they were friends. I guess they were in their early thirties--maybe younger. John would come by the studio and shoot the breeze or talk shop with Bill--and sometimes me. I was an insecure flunky kid, John made me feel important.
Chance Brought My First Mamiya C Series Camera
One time John had a Mamiya C220 Twin Lens Reflex camera in a nice black leather upright soft case, and three (maybe four) lenses to fit it. He was upgrading to a new camera, which turned out to be the then brand new Rollie 66 as I recall. He was leaving the kit for Bill to decide whether he wanted to buy it, or at least for Bill to show it around for him. Every would-be photographer in the town and beyound came by the studio at one time or another. Actually, as I recall, John may have bought the Mamiya from Bill in the first place.
They must have had me targeted. I was a sucker for medium format cameras. I had seen the Mamiya C-series advertised, but for some reason been put-off by them. I don't recall why; the new cameras were probalby out of my league price-wise. I know that I had often wanted lens interchangeability without giving up big negatives. I was comfortable with TLR's. Hassleblad was out of the question. I had thought about the Bronica Z, Kowa Six, and the Mamiya Press 23--but they too were too pricey.
The Kowa Six had special appeal to me, mostly because I fell in love with a stupid little Kamoflex-S, which was broken, that Bill had had temporarily for some reason. He had let me take the little 4x4 SLR camera home to mess with. He said it was either broken, or we didn't know how to work it. He let me take it home one weekend to mess with. Bill was always good that way. If the Kamoflex-S was not broken when I got it, it surely was when I got finished with it. We had no manual, and there was no quick way to snag a download off the Internet back then.
Of course the Internet didn't even exist then. As it runs out, the Kamoflex had a notorious design flaw. They were easily broken by not following a peculiar sequence in advancing and cocking the shutter when nno film was loaded. In fact, every Komaflex I have ever seen or even noted on Ebay, was broken--except the little jewel that I now own. I still like the stupid little thing.
I don't know how it transpired exactly, but I think I paid John half his price and took delivery and then paid him the rest later. It wasn't the last camera I ever bought from John. I will refer to John again when we get to the oddball little Rollie 26--one of a kind SLR ill-formatted for the Kodak 126 Instamatic cassete. Who would know that the widely used 126 Instamatic cartridges would ever be discontinued? Not Rollie.
http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2009/02/the-mamiya-cseries-reviewed.html
