R4M/A pix online

J

jlw

Rangefinder camera pedant
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Aug 27, 2004
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Sorry if this is old news, but I just now stumbled on it... there are some pictures and specs of the new wide-angle R4M/A on the Voigtlander Germany website (link here.)

The front viewfinder windows look somewhat larger than those of the R3 series, but not grotesquely larger. Should be interesting to see how they've packed in those wide-angle optics!

Here's the main pic:

BessaR4m_small.jpg
 
For some reason, their large image doesn't display in IE for me, but I downloaded and can view it. It's pretty.. They took the image with a Sinar 54 digital back according to the exif ;)
 
Looks like a fake picture. (Just kiddin! :))

I wish they could increase the RF base length.
 
FrankS said:
Looks like a fake picture. (Just kiddin! :))

I wish they could increase the RF base length.
Click to expand...

I really don't think we'll be seeing a blgger base length with the current Leica-CL-finder-grafted-onto-a-slr-body franken-camera bessa. Not without doing something radical like actually designing the camera from the get-go as a proper rangefinder. But then that's the new Zeiss.
That would be like volkswagen making an expensive deluxe luxury car to compete against the Audi A8.. when they own Audi.
 
clintock said:
I really don't think we'll be seeing a blgger base length with the current Leica-CL-finder-grafted-onto-a-slr-body franken-camera bessa. Not without doing something radical like actually designing the camera from the get-go as a proper rangefinder. But then that's the new Zeiss.
That would be like volkswagen making an expensive deluxe luxury car to compete against the Audi A8.. when they own Audi.
Click to expand...
and knowing VW, they'd probably call it something silly like the Phaeton
 
clintock said:
I really don't think we'll be seeing a blgger base length with the current Leica-CL-finder-grafted-onto-a-slr-body franken-camera bessa. Not without doing something radical like actually designing the camera from the get-go as a proper rangefinder. But then that's the new Zeiss.
That would be like volkswagen making an expensive deluxe luxury car to compete against the Audi A8.. when they own Audi.
Click to expand...

Yes, they call it VW Phaeton :)

And then there's the Audi R8 which competes with the Lamborghini Gallardo.

But since Porsche took over the helm at VW I'm not awaiting a Seat to compete with the Bugatti and a Skoda to compete with the Bentley Continental GT anytime soon.
 
0.52 magnification, that's not much EBL so FrankS is probably right with the 50/1.5.
 
I wish it was digital.. and had a Contax mount
__________________
Brett



Why the digital obsession? leaving aside the digital work produced by some top advertising sorts who use highly skilled specialists to process the files and make the prints, all I have seen from digital has been dreadful. Bad enough to make one want to gouge ones eyes out with teaspoons. Admittedly, much blame must fall on the users and there seem to be about 0.0001 percent of users who really know what they are doing with the things and have the skill and above all the eyes to make a decent colour print. The eyes thing is a really important point. Digital has made amateurs out of everyone. Very few people are really good colour printers, just as very few people have the ear to tune a concert piano or the palette to taste fine wines professionally. No matter how well calibrated one's digital system, and how much expertise one has with Photoshop, if you cannot see what is wrong you cannot fix it. Much of the junk I see proudly displayed can only have been made by the almost colour blind. Anyone with good vision can see what an awful mess it is. The fact is that unless one has truly excellent colour vision one will never make a truly excellent colour print except by accident. The big problem is that so many folks cannot see what is wrong with their prints.

Most people, and especially men, do not have excellent colour vision. Does this make one a bad photographer? Of course not. It makes one a bad printer. Hire an expert printer and start getting good prints.

Film is so much easier and in the vast majority of cases so much better it's ridiculous. (I mean top pro-lab developed and printed film, not local mini-lab stuff - that can be awful too!) If you have never done so, shoot a roll of quality film and get it developed and printed by the best pro lab in your country. You wil be amazed how good it can be.
 
Very interesting, more mileage out of the same chassis.

I put my new T to some good use this weekend. I still have to think about this one.
 
'Sorry to ask in this thread but can someone give a "quick and dirty" definition of RF base length. I think I understand what it's referring to but some help here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
Burkey, with a rangefinder distance is triangulated with the distance between the two finder windows as base lenght. With a longer baselength it is easyer to measure the angle.


The bigger viewfinder magnification helpes in alligning the two ghost images with greater accuracy but has less FoV than a low viewfinder magnification.

Usualy EBL, Effective Base Lenght, is the rangefinder baselength multiplied by viewfinder mangification. With a fixed base lenght, same rangefinder in all Bessa R bodies, the 1:1 viewfinder in the R3 gives the best EBL and the 1:0.52 in the new R4 the worst EBL.
 
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