Secondhand Love Affair: The Silvi

I can spend hours searching eBay and second hand stores for camera bargains but more often than not I don’t find anything to my liking or at the right price. Once in a while a search comes up trumps though with a little bargain.

I regularly trawl ebay for rare or second hand bargains but with a rise in the popularity of film cameras genuine bargains are hard to come by. That doesn’t put me off looking though.

Last year I started to become a little bit obsessed with 35mm fast aperture compact camera, for example the Fujifilm Natura Classica. It’s too expensive for my tastes though and second hand prices remain high. In doing some research I found an alternative with a very similar specification – the Fujifilm Zoom Date F2.8 (EU) / Silvi F2.8 (JAP). Needless to say I immediatelty started searching eBay.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I found a UK sourced Japanese model Silvi F2.8. Predicting it would sell for far more than I was prepared to pay I put a cheeky £15 maximum bid in and waited. A few days later and beyond all expecations I won it for the tiny sum of six pounds!

It took me around five minutes to fall in love with this camera. For me the most redeeming feature is the lovely wide and super sharp 24-50mm f/2.8-5.6 lens and support for ISO50-3200 film. I had already planned on this being my low light wonder with ISO1600 film @24mm f/2.8 (Natura 1600, Superia 1600, Neopan 1600, T-Max P3200) as well as my black and white godess with some Ilford Pan F Plus 50.

The only downside (in comparison to a Natura Classica) is the lack of ±2EV exposure compensation. You can get this on the Black Edition model but this is even more rare than my silver model.

I consider myself lucky to have found one for so cheap and remain in love to this day. This is one marriage that won’t end in divorce!

Thrift stores are treasure troves for vintage-lovers. Do you have something from a thrift store that remains close to your heart? Share your ‘Secondhand Love Affair’ stories with us by submitting an article and check out our requested posts for this month for more Piggies!

written by veato on 2012-02-22 #lifestyle #ebay #fujifilm #iso50 #iso1600 #f2-8 #veato #silvi #secondhand-love-affair #zoom-date