James McDaniel
Newbie
While my interest in rangefinders and vintage cameras is only a few months old, today I found a functioning Contax I (revision D) with Sonnar Carl Zeiss Jena f1.5 5cm lens for $30 at a local thrift store. The serial number is Y.34082 and it's in surprisingly good shape both mechanically (the shutter fires, aperture blades move smoothly) and aesthetically (pic below).
Now what?
Until recently I owned only a handful of vintage cameras. Then late last week I stumbled on a motherlode of rangefinders at Goodwill. And today I find this gem!
Normally I'd want to run a roll of film through it right away, but I'm new enough to this hobby that I wanted to ask the experts for options and suggestions first.
I've only had a few hours for a bit of web research so far and I don't want to break it or mess anything up. I got the sense from one of the websites that these cameras were showpieces only due to how easily they might break from normal usage. Is this true?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
James
Now what?
Until recently I owned only a handful of vintage cameras. Then late last week I stumbled on a motherlode of rangefinders at Goodwill. And today I find this gem!
Normally I'd want to run a roll of film through it right away, but I'm new enough to this hobby that I wanted to ask the experts for options and suggestions first.
I've only had a few hours for a bit of web research so far and I don't want to break it or mess anything up. I got the sense from one of the websites that these cameras were showpieces only due to how easily they might break from normal usage. Is this true?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
James

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