New to Range Finders

[Owen Flood]

Hi..........sorry if this is a bit lame but anyway............I am currenty looking to purchase a range finder camera.......I shoot a lot of street photography with available light and black and white film on Olympus OM Gear..............Whislt I cannot afford Leica I have been considering a Konica RF or a Bessa R2a or 3a................Any feedback would be most welcome.......

Thanks in advance.

 

[JoeFriday]

hey Owen.. I started out looking seriously at the Bessa R3a.. didn't end up going there (at least not yet), but it's a good setup.. as is the R2a.. and of course the Konica is well liked by those that have one

you might want to pick up something cheap just to bang around for a while until you get a feel for what you 'really want'.. I'd suggest a Canonet or Yashica GSN

 

[Sean Chan]

Or you could go for the Russian RFs, they are very attractively priced on the eBay.

Apart from the Bessa, you should also consider the Contax G system.

 

[Doug]

You could browse around CameraQuest.com... beyond the listings of new Voigtlander gear for sale is a treasure of articles about RF cameras of all kinds.

 

[Poptart]

I like a banana with a coupled f 1.4 lens myself.

 

[gchpaco]

Are you curious whether rangefinders will work for you, or are you pretty sure you want an interchangable lens rangefinder and just want to know which model will work? It sounds like you've been using SLRs pretty exclusively, so you might want to pick up a Canonet and make sure it's for you; I certainly found the experience of using the Canonet to be vastly different (and superior) than the experience using my Moskva, which is probably why I bought a gigantic Fuji the other week.

One positive thing about trying the Canonet first is that they are not bad cameras in their own right (very light, small, quiet, speedy) meaning it's not like it's a waste of money, and as well they aren't particularly expensive so if you find out it's not for you, no real harm.

If you want to know which interchangable lens rangefinder is a good idea, then you seem to have the right idea as far as I can tell. I am happy with my GL690 but that is not for everybody and finding lenses for it is like finding hen's teeth anyway.

 

[OlyMan]

RFs lend themselves to available-light street-photography much better than OM SLRs because they are ofen quieter, smaller, lighter and the RF system is easier to focus in low light than the OM SLR's split-image system. Sticking with the Olympus brand I would highly recommend the 35RC for its size and unobtrusiveness and the 35SP for its image-quality. The 35RC is particularly easy to get cheap on eBay, usually about $35, the 35SP will typically be double that. I would recommend getting something like a 35RC for starters (of another manufacturer's equivalent) because if you really find RFs are not for you, firstly you haven't spent a lot of money buying it and secondly you will probably be able to re-sell it at no loss.