LEWISTON – Knock enough Kewpie dolls off the shelf at a carnival in the 1960s and you walked away with a Diana camera.

Steve Carlson wasn’t a great aim. He also struck out trying to convince his father to buy him a Kodak offered at the 1965 New York World’s Fair.

“He sneered at the time and said no,” Carlson said.

Forty years later, success – and then some.

Carlson found the Diana this year in Sabattus and the Kodak about four years ago in southern Maine, two pieces in an antique camera collection big enough to shoot with a different camera every day. His oldest dates back to 1897, and with some exceptions, they still work.

Carlson said he took a photography course when he was young and got hooked. For 21 years he served as a photographer’s mate in the Navy, taking pictures of ships, people and of aerial views.

Originally, he started collecting Kodaks.

“Along the way I found too many cameras that were interesting. You never want to say no – it’ll never come back,” he said.

His cameras were made in nine different countries and use 20 different sizes of film. For the most part, it’s still possible to find new film for the sometimes very old cameras, he said.

Some have taken time to bring back into working order.

A Crown Graphic press camera from 1969 with a screw-in light bulb flash didn’t work until he took parts off a few others. Now the Crown Graphic shines like it just came out of the box.

That’s what Jimmy Olsen used in the Superman TV serial way back when, Carlson said. “Who knows what he uses now, probably digital like everyone else.”

Carlson has not been similarly won over. He likes that with his old cameras the shooter had to set the focus, the aperture, the flash.

“You had to sit there and figure it out. Read that as ‘think,'” he said.

Over the years, Carlson has used and let go of a lot of cameras. Now, he’s on a mission to get those models back. He’s 50 percent of the way there.