I Dream of Cameras

1d ago

Leicaflex, Contarex, Rolleiflex, Magicflex, Omegaflex! Olivia Dean and Debbie Gibson! Seth Rogen’s gone pano and the Swiss Army’s gone XXL! It’s IDOC’s jam-packiest episode yet, ’cause unless Debbie sings our theme song, it could be the Olympus Pen-ultimate! Tune in for all the mayhem! Birthday madness! Gabe got Jeff a Leicaflex SL at B&H Photo , whatta guy! The SL’s PX625 battery presents some challenges Chad GPT misled Jeff regarding the 50mm Summicron-R - turns out it takes a Series VI filter with a retaining ring the new camera prompted the customary orgy of book-ordering; however, only Jeff wants a Leicaflex book signed by author Theo Kisselbach please note: chromogenic Ilford XP2 Super scans much better than HP5 or Tri-X! Gabe visited with Sissi Lu , who has a new podcast and showed off her Kodak Charmera also, her googly-eyed lens cloth charm is back in stock at sissilu.com Gabe went on a sudden mad hunt for a Contarex Bullseye and a 50mm lens …and got a lens board for his Beseler 67C enlarger, thanks to Steve Pinter from pintercreative.com - honorable mention to Gabriel Butensky check out the “ 24 things from the Leica archive ” reels on Leica’s Instagram Gabe met up with our pal Chris Smirnoff , who deluged him with photo books: Yul Brynner , Comedians , Salgado , a Sears photo catalog… the two also chatted up Instagram shooters Connie and Stewart in search of brighter focusing screens for his Rolleiflex TLRs , Gabe got some from Magicflex Camera and they’re incredible Michael Herring ( colorblindfish on IG) sent Gabe a gorgeous camera strap from Couch Guitar Straps hey, the LA Camera Expo is bigger than ever! Gabe took a hard look at an Omegaflex and backed away Jeff attended the Olivia Dean Soho Session and this time did NOT interact with Danny Clinch P is on the cover of Numero Magazine , one of Gabe’s favorites Seth Rogen is a Widelux and XPan aficionado - let’s get him on the show! speaking of which: whither Debbie Gibson …? it’s holiday gift time, check our merch page ! P got Jeff a Swiss Champ XXL Swiss Army Knife for his birthday because she’s wonderful and finally, we dip a few toes into our Prodigious Mailbag™

Nov 16

How did these two mumbling malcontents pump out pods for five years and ninety-eight nattering episodes? In this one, the boys barely discuss that at all! Instead Jeff recaps his trip to London, to the shop where he bought both his Alpa and XPan, and Gabe recounts his acquisition of a legendary lens owned by an even-more-legendary photographer. A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest — tune in! November 20 marks IDOC’s fifth anniversary, and the 21st marks Jeff’s birthday! Jeff briefly recounts his trip to London, including a stop at Camera City , the shop where he got both his first Alpa and his first XPan Gabe’s birthday bonanza included a Lab-Box and a Negative Supply scanning rig… …he found a Beseler 67SC enlarger on FB Marketplace… …and went to (basically) Spahn Ranch in the Hollywood Hills to secure a 80mm f4 Rodenstock Rodagon enlarger lens… which, it turns out, used to belong to Herb Ritts ! our continuing adventures with the maddeningly inconsistent Chad GPT : it misled Jeff about the fate of the final penny , and lied to Gabe about a mysterious TLR which turned out to be a rare Rolleiflex 2.8F white face what do the boys think of the soon-come Widelux XX ? sad news: Freestyle Photo is closing their brick-and-mortar location should Jeff buy an O.G. Alpa-Reflex on the ‘bay to complete his collection? once again, we improbably empty the Prodigious Mailbag™ and now you must run to the L.A. Camera Expo in Burbank ‘cause it’s happening at this very moment!

Oct 15

More like L.A. De Da, because both hosts are together in the City of Angels: scoring sibling Olympi at a camera show, talking “new” Kodak film stocks with tasty typography, and shooting the works with a half-frame Swiss, a square-frame German and an American GOOSE. Tune in - it'll change your wife! this episode is dedicated to the memory of the great photographer Diane Keaton our second bad review has utterly vanished! Jeff’s results with the half-cookie Alpa 10s were delightful... shooting with the Polaroid GOOSE was a total kick... and the square-frame Zeiss Ikon Taxona - two-thirds of a cookie! - is a fun alternative to the elusive Mamiya Sketch at the wondrous L.A. Camera Expo , Gabe snapped up an Olympus 35RC , while Jeff went for big brother 35SPn , a rarer version of the 35SP with better typography Chad GPT misled us again! he made Jeff buy a Kilfitt Makro-Kilar in Exakta mount, insisting it was Alpa Kodacolor returns - or does it? once again, all we care about is good typography! how embarrassing: Jeff’s nemesis has entered the world of fashion we had a blast at the Bike Shed complex in DTLA’s Arts District we actually empty the Prodigious Mailbag™ for a change and finally, we urge you continue imploring Debbie Gibson to perform our theme song for the 100th episode

Sep 19

Is it enough for these two “middle-aged men” to merely share “what they’ve been up to”? One peevish iTunes reviewer doesn’t think so! But for the rest of you, tune in to this XL episode to hear the felicitous end of Jeff’s half-frame Alpa saga, news of Gabe’s bag-quisitions and camera meetups, a screed about how the new tariffs are crippling our hobby, a impassioned defense of free speech, and so much more! rejoice, for Jeff’s half-a-cookie Alpa 10s finally arrived! not only that, after he emailed the CEO of UPS , he got a personal response and an apology! Gabe loves his supersnazz Bleu de Chauffe camera tote, yet couldn’t resist snapping up Jeff’s cheap Strand Bookstore messenger bag as well Gabe (along with Rafael Hernandez ) went to the Susan Meiselas event at the Aero Theatre… …and crashed the LA Camera Exchange meetup from imstilldeveloping.com and Fridge Film the new hot camera is the Nikonos V — clearly the IDOC effect in action! Jeff has been kitting out his new Polaroid GOOSE … …but finds a 50mm lens a bit too tele-ish on the Alpa 10s, since a half-frame focal length × 1.44222 = full-frame, so he put in an offer on a 40mm Kilfitt Makro-Kilar guess what? we got another bad review ! Gabe hung out with friend-of-show Chris Smirnoff and also Robert Capron , who played Rowley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid , and went to a screening of Anvil: The Story of Anvil with the mighty Fred Coury the end of “de minimis” is a catastrophe if you buy stuff from abroad; check this eBay page for all the grim details - and thanks to tariffs, Ausgeknipst no longer ships to the US the boys take a graceful swan dive into quite the Prodigious Mailbag™ the folks at AOK Camera Repair win the coveted IDOC endorsement Gabe’s pictures feature in a Judd Apatow article in the latest Vanity Fair and Camera Maintenance & Repair by Thomas Tomosy is super-expensive, so grab the PDF from the Internet Archive or from here

Sep 2

Ach, der Schmerz! Aïe, la douleur! Jeff’s insanely rare, perpetually coveted, and newly repaired half-frame Alpa 10s has been lost by UPS. As you listen to the latest episode of our Smash Hit Podcast™, globally acclaimed yet eschewing of praise, spare a thought or a prayer for the grieving cohost! yes, the Alpa 10s half-cookie is MIA at UPS - should we be putting AirTags in our important packages? Gabe is obsessed with which film cameras were used by legendary photographers to take legendary shots - are you? Gabe went to the LA Camera Expo and came home with a slew of darkroom equipment Jeff got great results from Atlanta Film Co. with Kodak Vision 3 , but is it worth the extra cost, time and effort? the Osiris F1 is a fun ’n’ freaky ( ’n’ patent-infringing? ) film-processing robot we urge you to check out the Cameradactyl Master System from mad scientist Ethan Moses Gabe is back in the hunt for camera bags - his new obsession is the sexy, stylish and super-expensive Bleu de Chauffe meanwhile, Jeff’s Strand Bookstore messenger bag is dirt cheap! we both flipped for Sissi Lu’s new googly-eyed hang-tag lens cloth Jeff snapped up Langdon Clay Cars: New York City, 1974-1976 book shot with a Leica CL and Kodachrome 25 - yet everyone on Instagram thinks the pics are AI slop! Gabe found Jeff Bridges’ elusive and highly prized Pictures Vol. 1 at Goodwill for six bucks! who sent Gabe a 110 camera? do tell! happy birthday to our friend Vance DeGeneres - check out his incredible New Orleans New Wave band The Cold ! Los Angelenos! look into imstilldeveloping.com and the LA Camera Expo - Gabe will be there! and finally, we stick a pinky toe into the Prodigious Mailbag™

Aug 14

Jeff’s been engaged for over a month, and is suffused with bonhomie and goodwill, while the normally sanguine Gabe is ENRAGED! At eBay sellers who say “make an offer,” but don’t actually want one; at overpriced camera straps and thumb drives — he’s seething! Next, the boys note some stereotypically male behavior from “Chad” GPT, discuss the financial state of our beloved Kodak, examine the controversy over Nick Ut’s “Terror of War” photo, and take a swan dive into an exceptionally Prodigious Mailbag. Finally: will Debbie Gibson record a vocal version of our theme song for the upcoming (and final?) 100th episode, or is that Only In My Dreams? Shake Your Love and find out! Gabe traveled to Lake Muskoka north of Toronto and shot no film Jeff asked ChatGPT to compare the Closter Princess Junior with the Galileo Condor II , and it claimed they were bikes! We now dub the app “Chad GPT,” because he’s a man who'll never say “I Don't Know”! is Kodak in trouble ? Calm down ! we discuss the emergent controversy over the authorship of Nick Ut ’s “Terror of War” photo , as recounted in the new documentary The Stringer - for example, even AP admits the negative was not shot with Ut's preferred Leica M2 , but a cheap Pentax , and our trusty dusty camera repair guy confirms this Gabe rails at eBay sellers who say “make offer” but don't want an offer also, when is the asking price too high? for straps, thumb drives, Alpa strap lugs...? Jeff openly derides absurd packfilm prices Gabe rhapsodizes about OC Camera in Laguna Hills we both love Sissi Lu 's recent photo shoot with her mom our trusty dusty camera repair guy replaced the focusing screen in Gabe’s Rolleiflex 2.8E , and the results are glorious the Prodigious Mailbag™ includes an unexpected eyewitness update on Jeff's Alpa 10s half-cookie Gabe will be at the LA Camera Expo this Sunday, August 17th our designer (and award-winning photographer ) Keith Greenstein is back on Instagram check out The Darkroom Rumour , The Darkroom’s amazing new streaming site for photo documentaries and let's get Debbie Gibson to record a vocal version of our theme song with composer Fred Coury for the 100th episode!

Jul 29

Vapid glad-handing? Try happy wed-banding, because Jeff and P are engaged ! This blockbuster XL episode features a brief recap of the proposal and a lengthy recap of the engagement-moon that followed, with a smattering of camera content along the way. Tune in for all the romance! Gabe went to New York! at B&H , the mighty Shlomo hooked him up with a Rolleiflex 2.8E - so much for that 30-camera limit! hung out with Sissi Lu and Chris Chu shot nothing but film with the Leica M6 went to an event at Kodak House , saw some great stuff shot with with a Kodak Baby Brownie and left J + P a cool old Christie’s auction catalog from the Chelsea flea market Jeff lingered in Europe! bought and then returned a Zeiss Tenax II picked up film, books and apparel at the Zurich Ars Imago snagged a Freitag Lassie bike-messenger bag at their flagship store as an all-weather beach-friendly camera tote back home, his half-cookie Alpa 10s is undergoing major surgery while the recent Leica auction featured a similar Alpa 10s half frame and also the last original Alpa ever built! the 11es Jubilee Kodak Vision 3 may yield gorgeous results, but getting it processed is challenging - Atlanta Film Company to the rescue at Nice airport, the Sissi Lu Do Not X-Ray bag was a lifesaver we share news of big Chattanooga photo walk we’re sadly missing! and finally: two gods have ascended to a higher plane, Ozzy Osbourne and Tom Lehrer

Jun 27

Episode № 92 finds the boys in Sunset Strip rock clubs and sun-baked Czech vineyards, sampling exotic cinema film and strange European cameras, taking in celebrity gallery shows and nibbling koláče. What happened to those two humble kids from the oak groves of Riverdale and the pine forests of Atlanta — and who is Mike Sopko? Tune in to IDOC’s latest and find out — they’ve only got eight more to go! question: were we crisper and more cogent in earlier episodes? does this guy have a point?? buy a mug if you concur! Gabe (and resident rock god Fred Coury ) took Canadian hockey reporter Scott Laughlin to the Rainbow Room , then Mini-Kiss (a Kiss tribute band consisting entirely of little people) at the Roxy Gabe also went to a Cameras and Coffee … saw the amazing Paul McCartney show at Gagosian Gallery hunted for a replacement for his beloved Canon R5 and Sigma 85mm Art Lens … and Roberts Camera a.k.a. UsedPhotoPro came through! Meredith put together an incredible package for him Gabe returned to the LA Camera Expo at the Hotel Burbank and snapped up a Leicaflex SL with a 60mm f2.8 three-cam lens but it didn’t stop there! he also nabbed a Hasselblad 501CM from Ethan Ingram , and a point-and-shoot to be named later - he’s arrived at the promised 30-camera collection hold on there’s more! with an assist from Brandon Steadman , he (might) also (have) snapped up a Leica R8 , which would bring the collection to 31 (not including some broken ones) - okay, maybe we’re calling it thirty ish Jeff’s been in a Prague for a month, has shot 22 rolls of film, and cannot live without his XPan exposure compensation dial - how ’bout you? do you use yours? when the paint chipped off his e.c. dial, Jeff did a quick fix with a white paint pen from a local art supply store also, he found a new local lab to complement the mighty FotoŠkoda : FilmStore Prague , which has excellent prices for developing & scanning plus they roll their own Kodak Vision 3 cinema film, leaving the remjet on, and process it ECN-2 - Jeff shot their 250D and found the palette beautiful and the images stunningly sharp, and it’s half the local cost of Portra ! (n.b.: it’s not the same as CineStill ’s old 250D, which had the remjet removed) Jeff bought a rare Minox photo book from a seller in Germany and had it shipped straight to his Prague apartment, thereby saving tons of money and time - check out the preview on YouTube of Oktaeder: Spy-cam Sketches Minox 8x11 by Peter Bernard he also bought a vintage Alpa employee badge on eBay and vows to wear the late Mike Sopko ’s nametag with pride - Mike repaired cameras at the also-late Crick Camera in Kansas City for over forty years - here’s to you, Mike! seller goKevincameras is struggling mightily with tariff issues of course we must rifle wildly through our Prodigious Mailbag™ Gabe’s advice on how to how to find people to photograph? ask local artists! a final note: mere hours after recording this episode, Jeff’s XPan suffered its second bout of Sudden Fujifilm Battery Death™ in less than a month!