Looking for a good vintage RF

[lotech]

Hi there !

I am new here, but I've long time experience shooting film and digital. I am mainly a D/SLR shooter, but interested in shooting RF as well. I've played with a few different models of RF, namely the Leica M2 but very briefly, and then some Soviet FED, Zorki, Kiev...etc. Currently I am looking for a good RF with leaf shutter, so Leica is out of the question. There are few RFs I am interested in, namely the Konica IIIA which is widely regarded as the best vintage RF, it has an excellent RF system with parallax compensation made with prism. The other I am considering is the Konica S1.6 which uses the same RF system. Beside, I am also considering the Minolta V2, the Olympus 35S, the Petri 7 and the Aries 35. You may wonder why I omitted the very famous Kodak Retina IIIC ! Yes, I considered it on top of my wish list, but I dropped it for one reason, the lens ! Since RF with leaf shutter are mostly fixed lens design, so that I must be picky on the type of lens to use, the Retina was designed with changeable lenses, but only the standard lens allowed the cover to be closed, and I want wider than 50mm as everyday use.

I'm sure there are some other models I missed, I am still digging, but not all reviewers provide enough info. for the cameras, so I need some help from there. I am looking for a good RF with the following design :

1. A true RF system with parallax compensation
2. With wider than 50mm lens, preferably 40-45mm range
3. Full range shutter speed from B, 1-1/500s.
4. Can work without battery
5. Non bellow design except it is like the Retina with metal shield
6. Overall good build quality and reliable.

Sorry for so many questions on my first post, and I appreciate your help, thanks a lot and have a great day !

 

[lotech]

Correction, I was trying to say Petri 35 not Petri 7

 

[Hcompton79]

Retina IIIS?

-RF system with vertical and horizontal parallax compensation and automatic indexing framelines for 35, 50, 90, and 135mm lenses
-Lenses wider than 50mm include Schneider 45mm f/2.8, Schneider 35mm f/2.8, Rodenstock 30mm f/2.8 and Schneider 28mm f/4.
-Synchro-Compur with B, 1-1/500, yep.
-No battery, fully mechanical with selenium meter
-Solid bodied with leaf shutter and interchangeable DKL lenses
-Build quality=excellent, like the other Retinas. Reliable once serviced, though it may be difficult to find someone to do so. Much more reliable than the contemporary Retina reflexes.

 

[lotech]

Oh that's great thanks a lot, wonder why I did not see that after weeks of searching !

 

[santino]

Yashica Electro 35 CCN.
Can’t work without battery though.

 

[mdarnton]

The Canon QL17 GIII was my choice when I did this. It's a small camera with a superb 40mm 1.7 lens. Can run without a battery, has the parallax corrected finder. I hesitated for just a few seconds because the longest shutter speed is 1/4, then realized that I never use 1/2 and 1, and if I needed them it would be easy enough with B to replicate those speeds. It's an absolute gem. When I got mine they were also dirt cheap, but I see that those days are gone. It was the compact size and excellent finder that sold me on it.

There's a big user group on flickr: Canon Canonet QL17 G-lll

The Oly 35SP is another similar camera that looks nice.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Minolta AL-E is another contender. The camera is about the same size as the Canon QL17 GIII, has a 40mm F1.8 lens, parallax correction, shutter-preferred automatic. The difference: the meter operates on the Minolta on Manual Exposure. The Meter on the Canonet only works while it is on shutter-preferred automatic.

 

[mdarnton]

@Sonnar Brian -- Actually, the Cononet meter only works if you can get banned batteries or a Wein equivalent. I don't bother. 🙂

 

[splitimageview]

@Sonnar Brian -- Actually, the Cononet meter only works if you can get banned batteries or a Wein equivalent. I don't bother. 🙂

On QL17s I use a common S76 silver oxide with an appropriately sized o-ring around the battery. Adjust ISO to preference.

 

[splitimageview]

The Oly 35SP is another similar camera that looks nice.

No automatic parallax compensation, but does have manual compensation marks.

 

[splitimageview]

1. A true RF system with parallax compensation
2. With wider than 50mm lens, preferably 40-45mm range
3. Full range shutter speed from B, 1-1/500s.
4. Can work without battery
5. Non bellow design except it is like the Retina with metal shield
6. Overall good build quality and reliable.

Konica Auto S2 fits all these, a little larger than a QL17, but they are dirt cheap, and has a great lens.

 

[splitimageview]

The Minolta AL-E is another contender. The camera is about the same size as the Canon QL17 GIII, has a 40mm F1.8 lens, parallax correction, shutter-preferred automatic. The difference: the meter operates on the Minolta on Manual Exposure. The Meter on the Canonet only works while it is on shutter-preferred automatic.

Shutter speeds start at 1/8th, which isn't a big deal IMHO. Almost never shoot at less than 1/30 on my RFs.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

@Sonnar Brian -- Actually, the Cononet meter only works if you can get banned batteries or a Wein equivalent. I don't bother. 🙂

I calibrated my Canonet Ql17l for 1.5v batteries. The Ql17l is slightly older, but same size as the GIII. Does not use a lamp for the battery test, uses the meter needle for the battery test.



I also have the Minolta 7s-II, also a fine lens. Small, but not as heavily made as the Canonet. From my notes for the Minolta and Canonet, the metering mode of these cameras operate in Auto-Mode only. Manual exposure for Shutter-speed and F-Stop is easiest with an external meter or Sunny-16 rule.

Of course the Leica Cl is manual only, meter is accurate in all three of these cameras.

 

[wlewisiii]

Sigh. A CL with a Canon 28/3.5, Summitar 50/2 & Elmar 90/4 and a big pile of Fuji Reala & Ilford XP2+ was some of the finest film fun I ever had. The one I had had a dead meter but a handheld solved that. But I was foolishly still churning through cameras in those days and the only way to afford something different was to sell off the old. That one I miss more than most.

 

[julio1fer]

Leaf shutter, fixed lens, that means the lot of excellent cameras from Japan in the 1960s. My favorites are the Olympus 35SP, Minolta HiMatic 9, and Canonet GIII QL. There are many other excellent models, those are what I have used.

If you want changeable lenses, it would be the Retina IIIS, or the III c or C if you have more patience.

 

[lotech]

Thanks so much for the reply guys ! I am looking for one with leaf shutter and can work without a battery, so some of the recommendations do not fit into that, but I know they are all great cameras. I wanted a leaf shutter camera becoz my Sovet ones got leak on the cloth curtain, and my photos got fogged, so that even Leica will have that problem sooner or later, the same reason I don’t want a bellow camera. The reason I do not want an automatic model is that electronic devices produced over 30yrs. ago will probably start to fail today, even if they still work it will take some re-adjustment, so that I would rather go with an external meter like those hotshoe mounted ones. Btw I am primarily a Pentax shooter, I like everything about it except one thing, their film cameras were mostly made with cloth curtain shutter that made me worry ! Pentax has just restarted film camera production, I do hope they will come up with a RF !

 

[lotech]

Btw for what I mean parallax compensation is not only there are framelines for near and far distance framing, but the frameline will move during focus, I only know of 2 models from reviewers that can do this, the Retina and Konica, just to clarify.

 

[splitimageview]

Canonet QL17 has parallax compensating frame lines as does the Konica Auto S2. And @Sonnar Brian mentioned the Minolta above, a camera I’ve never seen.

 

[lotech]

Canonet QL17 has parallax compensating frame lines as does the Konica Auto S2. And @Sonnar Brian mentioned the Minolta above, a camera I’ve never seen.

IC thanks !

 

[TenEleven]

Since already many great suggestions have been given I don't have much to add there.

One thing that I want to note on parallax compensation, having used a lot of rangefinder cameras with them and without them, is that it's still very much an approximate framing device. For once due to parallax (the viewfinder being offset to the lens) it does not work for objects that are near you. So, even though the frame-line move to compensate for closer focus it still presents a "best guess" as to what will be included in the picture and does not guarantee that what's outside of the frameline does not end up in the picture and vice versa. This is true even for the "mythical" Leicas.

Then adding to the inaccuracies there is also shrinkage, all lenses will actually change in focal length as it is focused closer throwing off the framelines as well. The only rangefinder camera that I know of that tries to account for focal length changes/shrinkage is the Fuji GW690 series.

Parallax corrected framelines will also not save you from stupid gotchas such as shooting through a fence and forgetting to move sideways, or having a wall that is under you show up in the frame because unlike the viewfinder, the lens does indeed "see" it... been there done that...

Basically if you need absolutely dead-on accurate framing, nothing will match a single lens reflex. If you don't need that I would not make parallax correction the deciding factor, for example my main cameras do not even have static framelines - just a peep-hole, but having shot with them for long enough I have a very good idea about what will end up in the picture and what won't.