froyd
Veteran
This is for all of you who are reading this forum trying to decide whether to take a bold step into the RF world. I hope my experience will be of help in your research.
I have been an SLR user for over 15 years, with my main body being the Nikon F4s. Over the years the weight of that wonderful “beast” started getting to me. I moved from fast zooms to small primes, preferring ultra-wides over teles. My most shot lenses until recently were the 50mm and 20mm Nikors. Still, the weight was too much and often the camera I so loved to use sat at home because I considered it too bulky and cumbersome to take with me everywhere I went.
After lurking on RF Forum for months, reading every single page on the CameraQuest site, handling a few cameras at BH, and other types of research, I settled for a Bessa R2a.
The body having blown my limited budget on the camera body, I spent a few $ on an Industar 61 L/D and LTM>M adapter, and went on a week-long trip to Italy, armed only with the new camera.
First of all, rest assured that the R2a is a quality camera. I never touched a Leica, so I cannot make that comparison, but it felt more solid and heavy than I expected. The pebbled black finish looks very similar to that of the F4s’ motor drive and seems like it will be very resistant to scratches. The rubber patches are not as nice as I had hoped, but allow for a steady grip, if not for a luxurious feel. Even coming from a marvelously engineered camera like the F4s, I felt the R2a was a serious photographic tool.
I barely had time to glance at the instruction booklet before leaving, and I did not regret leaving it behind on my trip. If you ever used a pre-1980 SLR you’ll be right at home. Focusing is natural, exposures are quickly dialed, and the meter is pretty intuitive.
In use, I encountered the following difficulties coming from the SLR world. Focusing took longer than I had hoped, often having to focus past prime focus, and having to backtrack. This got better as I got more practice with the RF patch, but I missed many a picture because I was too slow to focus, and I even missed the antiquated auto-focus of the F4, or the split focusing patches of manual-focus SLRs. I also encountered occasional problems with the visibility of the RF patch and exposure readings, and I missed not being able to see the aperture reading in the view finder.
Additionally, I had some issued with focus at infinity and lens scale alignement, as outlined in a previous thread. Despite all this, the first pictures I developed looked properly focused and exposed.
The experience of carrying the Bessa with me was, nevertheless, everything I hoped it would be. While not light, I was able to carry the camera + I61 for hours on end without tiring, always having it with me whenever a photo op presented itself. Even better, I was able –as I had hoped—to let go of the obsessive control over every single aspect of a photograph that shooting with the F4 encouraged. By the 5th day of my trip, I was mostly shooting on manual exposure, not caring too much about exact framing, and letting DOF compensate for when I could not get the RF patches to align fast enough. While I normally enjoy sweating the details, it was fun to let go a bit, something I found shooting with a RF camera encouraged me to do.
I’m glad I chose an AE camera because taking pictures of my toddler can be challenging enough, without having to constantly re-adjust exposures as he runs in and out of the shadows. However, considering that I am the type that takes multiple spot metering of a scene, I feel pretty proud of myself for relaxing a bit and just dialing in a new exposure whenever I arrived in a new setting, and then letting that reading stand until light conditions changed enough to warrant it.
Overall the experience has been worth it. For an outlay of $550 or so I have been able to experience a different way of taking photographs, and my wife had the pleasure of going on vacation without constantly hearing me complain about the weight of the camera gear hanging on my neck!
If you can swing it financially, I encourage you to take the leap and give the camera a chance to grow on you, or better, for your way of taking photographs to evolve. If funds are an issue, you might want to try a Yashica fixed lens RF, which would have been my second choice, would the Bessa have been out of reach.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, and in a few days I’ll be able to post a few sample pictures.
I have been an SLR user for over 15 years, with my main body being the Nikon F4s. Over the years the weight of that wonderful “beast” started getting to me. I moved from fast zooms to small primes, preferring ultra-wides over teles. My most shot lenses until recently were the 50mm and 20mm Nikors. Still, the weight was too much and often the camera I so loved to use sat at home because I considered it too bulky and cumbersome to take with me everywhere I went.
After lurking on RF Forum for months, reading every single page on the CameraQuest site, handling a few cameras at BH, and other types of research, I settled for a Bessa R2a.
The body having blown my limited budget on the camera body, I spent a few $ on an Industar 61 L/D and LTM>M adapter, and went on a week-long trip to Italy, armed only with the new camera.
First of all, rest assured that the R2a is a quality camera. I never touched a Leica, so I cannot make that comparison, but it felt more solid and heavy than I expected. The pebbled black finish looks very similar to that of the F4s’ motor drive and seems like it will be very resistant to scratches. The rubber patches are not as nice as I had hoped, but allow for a steady grip, if not for a luxurious feel. Even coming from a marvelously engineered camera like the F4s, I felt the R2a was a serious photographic tool.
I barely had time to glance at the instruction booklet before leaving, and I did not regret leaving it behind on my trip. If you ever used a pre-1980 SLR you’ll be right at home. Focusing is natural, exposures are quickly dialed, and the meter is pretty intuitive.
In use, I encountered the following difficulties coming from the SLR world. Focusing took longer than I had hoped, often having to focus past prime focus, and having to backtrack. This got better as I got more practice with the RF patch, but I missed many a picture because I was too slow to focus, and I even missed the antiquated auto-focus of the F4, or the split focusing patches of manual-focus SLRs. I also encountered occasional problems with the visibility of the RF patch and exposure readings, and I missed not being able to see the aperture reading in the view finder.
Additionally, I had some issued with focus at infinity and lens scale alignement, as outlined in a previous thread. Despite all this, the first pictures I developed looked properly focused and exposed.
The experience of carrying the Bessa with me was, nevertheless, everything I hoped it would be. While not light, I was able to carry the camera + I61 for hours on end without tiring, always having it with me whenever a photo op presented itself. Even better, I was able –as I had hoped—to let go of the obsessive control over every single aspect of a photograph that shooting with the F4 encouraged. By the 5th day of my trip, I was mostly shooting on manual exposure, not caring too much about exact framing, and letting DOF compensate for when I could not get the RF patches to align fast enough. While I normally enjoy sweating the details, it was fun to let go a bit, something I found shooting with a RF camera encouraged me to do.
I’m glad I chose an AE camera because taking pictures of my toddler can be challenging enough, without having to constantly re-adjust exposures as he runs in and out of the shadows. However, considering that I am the type that takes multiple spot metering of a scene, I feel pretty proud of myself for relaxing a bit and just dialing in a new exposure whenever I arrived in a new setting, and then letting that reading stand until light conditions changed enough to warrant it.
Overall the experience has been worth it. For an outlay of $550 or so I have been able to experience a different way of taking photographs, and my wife had the pleasure of going on vacation without constantly hearing me complain about the weight of the camera gear hanging on my neck!
If you can swing it financially, I encourage you to take the leap and give the camera a chance to grow on you, or better, for your way of taking photographs to evolve. If funds are an issue, you might want to try a Yashica fixed lens RF, which would have been my second choice, would the Bessa have been out of reach.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, and in a few days I’ll be able to post a few sample pictures.
