cubastreet
Member
Hi,
I just bought a couple of GSNs off the bay.
I've been shooting only digital, but came across a kodak retina IIIC at a yard sale and fell in love.
Long story short, I received the cameras this week.
First impression: wow this thing's big.
To me, the retina would class as compact ... ish.
Big compared to compact digital cams, but....
The GSN is a monster!
One of them is mint in box - very clean inside and out.
OK next - I'm not all that into the design. To me it's not pretty or handsome.
Build quality is definitely not as high as the retina. Both the lenses feel slightly loose at the aperture ring, and one at the body too. I guess Hong Kong assembly helped make these cheap enough to be as plentiful as they are now, so I can forgive that and just fix them up.
The lens does look very nice. I've got a roll of fujichrome in it at the moment to test the metering, so can't comment on the results yet. It would be nice if the lens stopped down to f22 though, since the shutter will only go to 1/500.
All it took was a clean of the contacts in the battery compartments, a fresh 6v cell, and both the GSNs beamed into life. That's pretty good.
It's very simple and intuitive to use. I love some of the night shots I've seen from them, and available light is the big reason I bought this camera.
In the night time the looks don't matter, and the size is less of an issue too.
I got the yashica tele-wide lenses which I don't plan to use. The auxillary viewfinder is cool though, probably why it often gets separated from the lenses. They'll probably end up back on ebay.
I would love to take the lens, rangefinder and shutter and build a custom body, but that's way down my list of overambitious projects so don't expect anything soon.
Anyway, I'll post my thoughts when I get the film back.
I just bought a couple of GSNs off the bay.
I've been shooting only digital, but came across a kodak retina IIIC at a yard sale and fell in love.
Long story short, I received the cameras this week.
First impression: wow this thing's big.
To me, the retina would class as compact ... ish.
Big compared to compact digital cams, but....
The GSN is a monster!
One of them is mint in box - very clean inside and out.
OK next - I'm not all that into the design. To me it's not pretty or handsome.
Build quality is definitely not as high as the retina. Both the lenses feel slightly loose at the aperture ring, and one at the body too. I guess Hong Kong assembly helped make these cheap enough to be as plentiful as they are now, so I can forgive that and just fix them up.
The lens does look very nice. I've got a roll of fujichrome in it at the moment to test the metering, so can't comment on the results yet. It would be nice if the lens stopped down to f22 though, since the shutter will only go to 1/500.
All it took was a clean of the contacts in the battery compartments, a fresh 6v cell, and both the GSNs beamed into life. That's pretty good.
It's very simple and intuitive to use. I love some of the night shots I've seen from them, and available light is the big reason I bought this camera.
In the night time the looks don't matter, and the size is less of an issue too.
I got the yashica tele-wide lenses which I don't plan to use. The auxillary viewfinder is cool though, probably why it often gets separated from the lenses. They'll probably end up back on ebay.
I would love to take the lens, rangefinder and shutter and build a custom body, but that's way down my list of overambitious projects so don't expect anything soon.
Anyway, I'll post my thoughts when I get the film back.
