R
ruben
Guest
Perhaps it wll be rather boring for many members and guests, as this camera is well known among RFF. Nevertheless I cannot stop myself from writing the following love poem, to my new Konica Auto S2.
I have even not finished a roll and I am already in love with this full featured camera, about whose sharp lens a lot have been already said.
"Why is this camera so big ?", I asked not long ago at RFF. After opening the top casting to clean the viewfinder optics it become very obvious. No effort has been invested by Konica designers to exploit all that empty space left out there. Just as simple as that. Yet, a great effort was invested in making a camera with great basic features, some of them taken to perfection.
As a point of reference I will take two other competitors: the Olympus SP and the Canonet GIII. In fact, the Minolta 7s should be present, but mine was given long time ago to an ex-friend who became so much in love with it that it seems he prefered the camera to my friendship.
THE LIKES
a) Coupled rangefinder. This means mooving framelines according to metered distance, thus eliminating automatically parallax problems for close focus shots. What a pleasure! Not only a pleasure, and accurate framed images but fast shooting too !!
Ask me about a fixed lens rangefinder for street photography, and I will say Konica Auto s2.
b) Another feature enabling fast shooting is the focusing handle, present too both at the Oly and the GIII. Once you get used to (and I am) you focus and shoot like with a machine gun.
c) But both the Oly and the GIII have rather cranky (grrrrr) shutter speeds rings. Here the Konica shines. Both the shutter and f/stop rings are so smoooooth...
d) The viewfinder came quite clouded, but once cleaned it becomes the antithesys of the Kievs. With the Kievs you have a dim viewfinder but a strongly bright yellow patch. The Konica bears a rather dim yellow (greenish) patch but a very sharp and contrasty viewing window. Another pleasure !
e) Size and weight. 750 grams for both body and lens is not the last word of technology, but not proper of the Filinstones too. In fact both the Oly and the GIII are only 100~150 grams less heavy, while much smaller. The Koni big size on the other hand makes the camera very much grippable, easy to handle from the first moment. But, obviously this is not the camera you will pick when carrying a lot of gear besides.
f) Cds cell meter and Auto exposure. The s2 sports a cds cell meter, which I cannot speak too much about since the one in my sample although mooving is not consistent nor quick. Provided a sample in which the cell meter works, you have a shutter priority (again fast shooting first) auto exposure, with readings of the consequent f/stop both at the viewfinder and at a special window over the top casting, enabling discreet meterings towards people at close range. "Exposure lock" via depressing half way the shutter.
g) Shutter noise. Quite in the low noise league, and for sure not that punch on your face like with the Oly. But somehow my feeling is that here the Koni designers went lazy too. And they added sin to crime, by making an amateur-appealing unique feature - a kind of deliberate ratcher noise while you moove the winding handle....
h) Price. Ho guys and girls, perhaps this is the only great camera in which you are almost paid for to buy. I paid u$d 30 for an Exc+ model. Can you believe it, a coupled rangefinder shutter priority auto-manual with above the average optics = just $30 incl case ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
i) On top of it: depht of field scale, with infra red mark.
Please relieve those sellers from this burden, take one home.
THE DISLIKES
a) What the hell is that "built in hood", described in the manual as being of the "push out" type ? I look at the camera and see no hood, but a slight protrusion of the filter compound, about some half of a centimeter. Can this be the hood ? Nahh ... If yes it should "push out". Therefore I push and push until I jam that black compound, breaking the plastic pin fixing the compound and one of the wires of the cell meter... Fortunately, even with the loosen compound the camera continues to operate as a fully manual one. I believe from some pics, my sample arrived without the hood. Beware.
b) I disliked too the chromish look of such a big camera. A camera of this size should have been designed either black, or with a black optional body. Black reduces apparent size. Chrome biggens it. Even if it was not the fashion by the sixties, camera size had to be taken into account.
Otherwise, very promising camera !
Kindly post your Konica Auto S2, until I may post mine.
I have even not finished a roll and I am already in love with this full featured camera, about whose sharp lens a lot have been already said.
"Why is this camera so big ?", I asked not long ago at RFF. After opening the top casting to clean the viewfinder optics it become very obvious. No effort has been invested by Konica designers to exploit all that empty space left out there. Just as simple as that. Yet, a great effort was invested in making a camera with great basic features, some of them taken to perfection.
As a point of reference I will take two other competitors: the Olympus SP and the Canonet GIII. In fact, the Minolta 7s should be present, but mine was given long time ago to an ex-friend who became so much in love with it that it seems he prefered the camera to my friendship.
THE LIKES
a) Coupled rangefinder. This means mooving framelines according to metered distance, thus eliminating automatically parallax problems for close focus shots. What a pleasure! Not only a pleasure, and accurate framed images but fast shooting too !!
Ask me about a fixed lens rangefinder for street photography, and I will say Konica Auto s2.
b) Another feature enabling fast shooting is the focusing handle, present too both at the Oly and the GIII. Once you get used to (and I am) you focus and shoot like with a machine gun.
c) But both the Oly and the GIII have rather cranky (grrrrr) shutter speeds rings. Here the Konica shines. Both the shutter and f/stop rings are so smoooooth...
d) The viewfinder came quite clouded, but once cleaned it becomes the antithesys of the Kievs. With the Kievs you have a dim viewfinder but a strongly bright yellow patch. The Konica bears a rather dim yellow (greenish) patch but a very sharp and contrasty viewing window. Another pleasure !
e) Size and weight. 750 grams for both body and lens is not the last word of technology, but not proper of the Filinstones too. In fact both the Oly and the GIII are only 100~150 grams less heavy, while much smaller. The Koni big size on the other hand makes the camera very much grippable, easy to handle from the first moment. But, obviously this is not the camera you will pick when carrying a lot of gear besides.
f) Cds cell meter and Auto exposure. The s2 sports a cds cell meter, which I cannot speak too much about since the one in my sample although mooving is not consistent nor quick. Provided a sample in which the cell meter works, you have a shutter priority (again fast shooting first) auto exposure, with readings of the consequent f/stop both at the viewfinder and at a special window over the top casting, enabling discreet meterings towards people at close range. "Exposure lock" via depressing half way the shutter.
g) Shutter noise. Quite in the low noise league, and for sure not that punch on your face like with the Oly. But somehow my feeling is that here the Koni designers went lazy too. And they added sin to crime, by making an amateur-appealing unique feature - a kind of deliberate ratcher noise while you moove the winding handle....
h) Price. Ho guys and girls, perhaps this is the only great camera in which you are almost paid for to buy. I paid u$d 30 for an Exc+ model. Can you believe it, a coupled rangefinder shutter priority auto-manual with above the average optics = just $30 incl case ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
i) On top of it: depht of field scale, with infra red mark.
Please relieve those sellers from this burden, take one home.
THE DISLIKES
a) What the hell is that "built in hood", described in the manual as being of the "push out" type ? I look at the camera and see no hood, but a slight protrusion of the filter compound, about some half of a centimeter. Can this be the hood ? Nahh ... If yes it should "push out". Therefore I push and push until I jam that black compound, breaking the plastic pin fixing the compound and one of the wires of the cell meter... Fortunately, even with the loosen compound the camera continues to operate as a fully manual one. I believe from some pics, my sample arrived without the hood. Beware.
b) I disliked too the chromish look of such a big camera. A camera of this size should have been designed either black, or with a black optional body. Black reduces apparent size. Chrome biggens it. Even if it was not the fashion by the sixties, camera size had to be taken into account.
Otherwise, very promising camera !
Kindly post your Konica Auto S2, until I may post mine.
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