A Pocket Change-Up

[amateriat]

Hopefully, before my trip to Florida to document my Nephew's graduation from FSU (I take off Saturday afternoon, and get back Monday night) the Contax Tvs I bought from FrankS hits my doorstep, because I'm planning to primarily shoot b/w, and was hoping to load the Contax with color film of some kind while the Hexars are loaded with Kodak BW400CN.

This got me thinking about my quest for (relative) simplicity in my setup, especially when traveling. My two-body, three-lens Hexar setup has served me quite well on the road, but there's always been the desire for a pocketable "runabout" to do other things with. Over the last six years before I managed to break it, that was a Ricoh GR-1, with which I took a number of photos I regard as among my best. When I was mainly shooting b/w with the Hexen, I loaded color in the Ricoh, and vice-versa. Since I broke it (fell out of my hands when I should have been using the wrist strap), I've tried various lower-end replacements (Yashica T4, Konica Lexio 70 et al), but things didn't gel quite the same. I'm getting the feeling that the Contax, albeit with a somewhat slower zoom lens, will fill the void well, and then some. (I love the fact that, instead of a noisy zoom motor, the Contax' zoom mechanism is both mechanical and manual in operation.)

So...just to ask, how many here have gone for such a "third camera", and how has this worked for you (or not), and what is/was your weapon of choice?


- Barrett

 

[fixbones]

Like you, i was on a search for a small portable 3rd camera that could fit into my pocket easily.....

Just won a bid for a mint Oly Stylus Epic yesterday to go with my Hexar AF and Nikon FE2. Not sure yet how well they would fit in...curious to find out myself.

In any case, the Oly is well regarded and cheap too...so figured if i don't put it to much use.....its inexpensive enough to keep and easy enough to sell if i decided to.

 

[BTMarcais]

Well, my "third camera" for a couple of years was a Hexar AF. It actually ended up being my primary 35mm camera for a while, pretty much by accident. I all of a sudden realized that 80% of my 35mm shots were w/ the Hexar...
Unfortunately, that camera was on (a very extended) loan from the local Konica sales rep (he actually forgot I had it I think...), and I had to give it back.
It was a little big to be an extra camera to take around though, most times I would just have the Hexar.
I ended up w/ an Oly XA for a while (later sold, bought another, sold it again), and a couple Minox ML's (both died). The size on all of these was great, and they'd often get thrown in the bag either along with my main camera, or simply taken with me when I didn't want to deal with carrying a bigger camera. The lenses in the minoxs were super sharp, but the cameras just didn't last. The XA was simply fun, and usually came with me everywhere.
But then I got a Rollei 35. Love the admittedly strange ergonomics, don't mind the scale-focusing at all, the lens is great, I prefer working in manual exposure anyway, and the size can't be beat (just like the xa and minox).
I sold off the XA, still have the Rollei, and use it pretty much like you're planning on using the TVS (color in the rollei, b/w in the leica, vice versa), and also take the Rollei whenever I think I want a camera, but don't want to lug something else around.

The most important things I've learned from this all?
I like having a small camera around.
I need to feel comfortable using it (or it gets left home).
(and the lens needs to be good enough that I'm comfortable bringing just that one camera!)

A little long and rambling, but hope that helps?

-Brian

 

[amateriat]

fixbones and Brian: Lot of good stuff here.

The Hexar AF, in fact, was the "gateway drug", if you will, back to RFs for me, from about two decades of SLR-centric photography, and I loved if for the five years I had it, but (1), I needed to trade it, along with my then-current pro AF SLR system, to kick-start my Hexar RF system in early '02, and (2) just before this, I had bought the Ricoh GR-1, which seriously cut into my use of the Hexar autofocus, in spite of the fect that the Hex had a faster lens. Size really does matter under certain circumstances. 😉

When the Contax Tvs first came out, I sneered a bit at it, largely necause of its "slow" zoom lens, and my prejudice against any emulsion above ISO 100 at the time. "Fast lenses/slow film" was my motto, as I ran around with my Canon/Nikon.Pentax/Minolta SLRs loaded with Kodachrome (or, failing that, early EPR). Mind you, I don't regret this, as high-speed color emulsions at the time, to be blunt, sucked. But that was then: later on, I disconvered how much progress had been made in high-speed color neg films (did I mentioned that I NEVER touched neg film for so long? Was I psycho baby or what?). More important, I discovered the digital world via film scanning...that blew my mind seriously. Easing up a stop or so no longer seemed "evil."

And, I've lived for a few years with my Konica Lexio 70, which has a 28-70 zoom that distorts way too much at 28mm, and has a maximum variable-aperture range of...f/3.4 to f/7.9???

The main things I'm hoping for with the Contax are (1) MUCH lower distortion than I've suffered with the Lexio, and (2) most of the goodness I've enjoyed with the Ricoh in terms of precision control. I'm also hoping the Contax will be at least a bit quieter than the Ricoh. (The Contax' manual-zoom control makes me hopeful...I haven't met a motorized zoom control I didn't dislike, especially in terms of noise.)


- Barrett

 

[mcgrattan]

For quite a few years for me it was the Stylus Epic. My usual travel kit was a 'big' camera -- film or digital SLR, or medium format rangefinder -- and the Stylus Epic.

These days the Rollei AFM35 plays that role. It's not quite as compact as the Olympus, but the extra manual control is worth it. In fact, the last foreign trip I was on, I took only the Rollei and half a dozen rolls each of colour and black and white film and had a lot of fun with just one camera that could fit in a jacket pocket.

I suspect the next trip I take will be with the 35mm Rollei AFM and with a medium format camera.

That said, for zoom compacts, I have the Minolta Freedom Zoom Explorer and while the zoom lens is pretty slow compared to primes, the results from it have been pretty impressive. The meter and autofocus are very good.