First RF- halp!

[Sqiud]

Hey there. I am new to RFs and I am absolutely blown away by looking at 50-60 years worth of camera choices. Too much info.

All I want to do is take B&W street candids that are decent/good quality (ie nice looking fine art potential)

The oly 35 RC looks like a great choice. (As well as many others.)

Anyways, questions.
-Would I benefit much from a faster lens than that on the RC, or equivalent?
I'd be shooting up close candid shots on the street on sunny or cloudy days.

-Most older cameras I find on ebay have broken meters. Is meterless shooting feasible or does it take a LOT of getting used to? I've only ever shot with a meter.

Finally, is there a better place than ebay for finding old 35 rfs??

Thank you kindly for the read 🙂

 

[feenej]

Olympus 35 RC is a great choice - it is extremely quiet. I always wanted to try the SP though, which is a little bigger I think. Shooting without a meter no problem, just guess. I found my last used old RF at a camera store in the used department.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Hey there. I am new to RFs and I am absolutely blown away by looking at 50-60 years worth of camera choices. Too much info.

All I want to do is take B&W street candids that are decent/good quality (ie nice looking fine art potential)

The oly 35 RC looks like a great choice. (As well as many others.)

Anyways, questions.
-Would I benefit much from a faster lens than that on the RC, or equivalent?
I'd be shooting up close candid shots on the street on sunny or cloudy days.

-Most older cameras I find on ebay have broken meters. Is meterless shooting feasible or does it take a LOT of getting used to? I've only ever shot with a meter.

Finally, is there a better place than ebay for finding old 35 rfs??

🙂

Of course! - there's the RFF classified ads!....you may even get one with a working meter, so you can shoot 'fine art' street more easily!
Dave.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Join the club!😀......and welcome!

 

[konicaman]

Hi Squid

Nice to have you here.- It is a very pleasant forum; I am sure you are going to like it here 🙂

Shooting without a meter is no big deal if you shoot B/W or color negatives - just use the Sunny 16 rule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule
When in doubt, overexposing is better than underexposing
If you shoot slides, a meter is recommended - IMHO anyway

Shooting mainly in broad daylight, it does not really matter if you got a 1.8/2.8 or 3.5 lens. Night time/low light shooting is another matter though!

The olympus is a good choice. You might also consider a Konica Auto S2 which has a superb lens, or the very cheap but quite good Rank Mamiya cameras.
Make sure to asked the seller, if the rangefinder is perfectly aligned!

Happy shooting!

 

[btgc]

Focusing large aperture lens to get reasonable times can be tricky, in context of rapid candid shots. For this reason I went for pushing (must admit, I'm on first roll 🙂 ) - I've started to develop BW film this summer with plenty of light, and only a a few rays now.

Metering is same pie - if I would meter each scene, I couldn't react fast enough to volatile nature of street. So I either go meterless (35RC) or rely on AE (Electro 35MC).

 

[kuzano]

Take care on camera selection.....

Take care on camera selection.....

During the era of cameras you are pondering, be cautious about making sure you get a camera that has manual over-ride of the exposure system. There are a lot of cameras during the late 60's and early 70's that were auto exposure only with no manual override.

It's not entirely true that you can shoot any of the cameras without meter function, or manually. Be sure the cameras you choose have manual operation available and would not be battery dependent. For instance, all the Yashica Electro's in the G series (G, GS, GSN) do not have a way to manually set the shutter speed. That's true of certain of any of the other manufacturer's as well.

Just a cautionary note.