Weekly Update, November 2025
It was exceptionally busy in the market this past Saturday, which is great as I sold lots of stuff, but also left me less time to chat with everyone so my apologies to anyone I couldn't spend time with. I had basically nothing to do all of Friday so maybe skive off work and come in then instead. That was a very slow day.
Lovely to meet a bunch of new people to the stall and see some familiar faces too!
New Stock
New stuff in the market this coming week:
- Fujica ST605n with new light seals. I had 3 of these to sort out and this is the second one, makes for a nice beginner film camera as it's M42 mount and relatively modern - £45
- Topcon Unirex EE, new light seals. I thought this was broken when it turned up, but it turns out it has a leaf shutter. Bizarre camera and further endears me to Topcon - £45
- Edixa Mat Kadett, M42 mount camera with lens. Arrived with a sticky shutter but it turns out these are some of the easiest cameras to service that I have ever seen. Running well again and has a very funky waist-level finder, although the lens aperture is stuck open and I haven't fixed that yet - £80
- Olympus Zuiko MC Auto-T 100mm f/2.8. Had fungus, which I've cleaned, but I then scratched the rear element (sigh), so this is a bit of a bargain for someone who doesn't mind that. As far as I can tell it doesn't affect the final image - £90
- A Lumix DMC-TZ10 compact digital camera. In great condition and has two batteries, memory card, charger, and box - £55
- I have some Sony mirrorless gear to sell that's a bit out of the usual price range of stuff I have in the market. This includes an A7 III, FE 24-105mm f/4 OSS lens, HVL-F60RM2 flashgun, and ECM-B10 shotgun microphone, all in excellent condition. If you're interested in any of it, drop me an email as I'll be selling it elsewhere after this week (if there's no interest) to recoup some money.
Coming Soon
- More Mamiya 645 stuff - I've had a bunch of people interested in the ones I had in the market this week, and I love the system, so I'm picking up some more bodies and kit lenses where I can.
- Probably some Minolta lenses. It's surprisingly rare I acquire MD lenses in lengths other than 50mm, for some reason, but as I've taken the SRT-100 from the stall for myself I now have a personal interest in sourcing some. I do have a couple of interesting ones on the way but not sure if they'll need stripping and cleaning first, so TBC.
- I'm starting to think of stocking some fresh film. I think this will be useful for people starting out in film photography as I currently have to direct them elsewhere. I'll probably stick to cheaper stocks and single rolls at the moment and my markup won't be much, but let me know what sorta things you'd like to see. The stall is too small to get proper distribution agreements with the film companies, I suspect, so this is very much up in the air right now.
3D Printing Progress
So I spent the week relearning CAD (urgh) and iterating on a design for a 120 film case. After 5 versions I've settled on a design I'm happy with and I'm now getting reliable prints. I gave out a couple of the banana-shaped first units (in a fetching carrot-orange) for people to test this weekend and I'm using 3 of them myself, and so far they seem to be holding up well.
There's a few variants of this idea on the market but most fail to accommodate 120 rolls with the wrappers still on, which is where the expiry date is! So this is my take on the idea. They're push-fit, made from PLA (which is recycleable back into more 3D printer filament and technically compostable, albeit not at home), and as close to zero waste as I can get it - it uses no supports or brims which get discarded after printing. I'll be storing any misprints and printer waste and recycling it myself when I have enough. There will be an imprint on the inside of the lid but the outside is plain. As these are 3D prints there will be subtle variations and flaws on each copy.
I'll be printing them in a few different colours in batches, and the first batches will be in carrot orange, black, yellow, and the rather snazzy shiny pink/black seen above (this will have more visible flaws because the silk filament is a bit of an embuggerance). The tolerances seem to be good so mixing and matching lids/bases should be possible. The larger version takes 3 hours to print so my throughput will be somewhat limited, but I don't have that many customers that shoot 120 so that's probably not an issue. Let me know if you'd be interested in a specific colour and I'll consider it for a future run!
I do have plans for some even larger models in future as I personally want them for fridge storage, but they'll be a while off yet. There will also be 35mm versions in the near future - that's my next task.
The 5 slot version will be £15, and the 3 slot version £12. I have no idea how popular these will be but on the off chance I do run out, I'll continue to print more and I will be able to post them as well.