Kit/Equipment Category

Swiss camera manufacturer Alpa says to not change the shutter speed after cocking the shutter on Copal 0 and 1 size shutters.
From their newsletter:

Back in analog times everything was a little bit easier. Photographers were photographers and the number of actuations of the shutters low. Now in the digital times the number of actuations has [...]

The Impossible Project—the people behind NOS Polaroid film resellers Polapremium and Polaroid photo sharing site Polanoid—bought the equipment necessary to make Polaroid 8×10 instant film, and hopes to start production in 2010.
New successful prototypes of black and white integral film for SX-70 and 600 Polaroid cameras have also been completed. Awesome.
More details in this article [...]

Check out this review of the Holga WPC (Wide Pinhole Camera) at HolgaBlog.
Related: Holga WPC group on Flickr

Shutter lubricants get hard or gummy if they sit for too long, so it’s a good idea to give your shutters regular workouts to keep them working smoothly. It sucks, but it helps avoid sticky shutters, which cause ruined photos and expensive servicing. I try to fire each of my shutters about 20 times on [...]

This monster, that looks like it’s at least a foot across, can be yours for the low price of $35,370 USD! Check out the photos on the eBay Germany listing.
Thanks to Seth O for the heads up!

Jonathan Block just made a PDF of the user manual for the Kiev 88 medium format camera. This is the only copy I’ve seen available online.
Other Kiev info at Kievaholic

Get a load of this eBay listing for a 5200mm, f/14 lens. Be sure to look at the bottom picture showing an SLR mounted to it.

The goons at the Lomographic Society International—the people who brought the world the $20 Holga for $70 and monopolistic control over the distribution of the Lomo LC-A camera—have now added Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day to the list of products and events they had nothing to do with creating that they’ve claimed as their own. The [...]

The Jobo daylight film processing system seems confusing at first, and their web site is an unhelpful mess, but IMO it’s worth working through, because the stuff is good and does what it says it’s going to do well. Here’s what I have (all link to B&H):
#2561 tank with magnet base, holds 2 x 4×5 [...]

Check out this roundup of crazy sh*t, including the Sigma APO 200-500mm f/2.8 and Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700mm f/4 lenses and a 6×17 inch camera:

There are several categories of camera gear available: there’s the sensible, the desirable and then there’s the stuff that you’d never even imagined. Here’s a selection of equipment that [...]