Sichuan collector gathers over 200 vintage cameras

Li Kang, a young man in Chengdu, Sichuan province, has collected 210 cameras over the past 10 years.

Li's fascination with lenses began when he was studying measure and control technology at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu. In 2007, Li got his first film camera, a nearly-new Minolta XG-M. In the decade that followed, Li became obsessed with collecting old mechanical cameras. To grow his collection, Li has visited numerous online and brick-and-mortar secondhand camera shops across China, as well as in Europe and Asia.

Li sorts the lenses - including those from Nikon, Leica, Minolta, Contax, Zeiss and other brands - into roughly 40 boxes. In February 2016, a photo that he took was the only prize-winning Chinese entry in Nikon's global internal system photography contest.