IVSB - first impressions

W

wlewisiii

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As most of you are aware 🙄 I got this screwmount rangefinder body in a trade with Mike Elek. I recieved it early last week and promptly broke it :bang: I'm really not sure what I did, but I did a really good job of it ... Less than a week later, though, it's back from DAG in fine condition.

I've put one roll of color negative film through it using a Jupiter 8 ltm lens that I'd also traded for. I'll get that roll back tomorrow, but already I begin to see why people like these so much. A very smooth and well built camera.

The combined VF/RF is better than more than a few I've used and I certainly like the magnified view for focusing in less than ideal conditions. It is a bit smaller than I usually prefer, but it's heft keeps that from being too big of a problem. The shutter is an amazing little "schnick" sound - the M3 I once used seems positivly loud in my memory compared to this.

My silver VC Meter II is perfect fit for the shoe. The ever ready case is actually a usefull one - snaps allow the top half to come off completely and there is a tripod hole in the bottom of the knob holding it on. With a wrist strap, this is one easy to carry everywhere camera. It also fits well into my film bag on top of the seven 4x5 holders I keep in it 🙂

One thing though, I am far more impressed with Mr. Capa's Spanish Civil War shots than even before - while loading this camera isn't that difficult, it is much more fiddley than loading a Contax and I'd hate to even imagine doing so under fire... 😱
Time to go pre-trim a few leaders I think 😛 and then burn some of that Ektachrome 400X I bought today 😀

William
 
No, he used a bottom loading Lieca, I forget which model, which loads in the same manner as the Canon.

William
 
Spanish Civil War..1936 to 1939 - Canon IVSB 12/1952 to 3/1955 . Capa most likely used a Contax II & maybe also a Rollei TLR in photographing that war. Earlier on he used a borrowed Leica to Photograph Leon Trotsky at the very start of Capa's career. he was pictured using an rf Canon in one photos of him in that documentary, shown last May on PBS. He was said to be found holding on to a Nikon S ,when his lifeless body was discovered in 1954 , after he stepped on a land mine in Indochina.
 
Lovely little camera, and the one I acquired is sooo smoooth! Alas it still has a small hole in the shutter curtain, despite several coats of fabric paint.

How do you find the viewfinder compared to your other cameras? As I wear spectacles it's a bit of an effort to see the full frame.
 
Chris, I like the VF but then I'm used to some fairly squinty ones. I do find I take off my glasses if there is any question of framing, but being a Contax/Kiev user that is par for the course other than for my 5. I am also far sighted which helps in these circumstances. The biggest problem I'm having with the VF/RF is that the hood I have on the Jupiter 8 vignettes the RF patch... 🙁 That gets to be a real problem. I'll probably have to invest in a vented hood as a result.

William
 
1) Came out very well, far as I am concerned. Thank you for an excellent deal. You need to remember, I wasn't able to fix that Retina. So a busted camera that I didn't know what to do with for a camera that needed a repair I could arrange is not a terribly bad proposition. I feel I came out quite well, thank you 🙂

2) Nope, he didn't touch the chew toy marks, although he did have a (Cheap!) new base plate to replace the engraved one. But I do get the feeling from my talks with him that if I were to pop for a full cla he'd probably try to work all those chew marks out as part of the deal. That is one amazing place to send a camera - fast, good and (for all intents we care about) really quite freaking cheap.

[blatant plug mode] If your camera is one he works on, I have a hard time imagining a better place to send that camera than DAG. No connection other than being an extreamly happy customer. [/blatant plug mode]

William
 
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