I Dream of Cameras

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™

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!

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

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

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™