Rangefinder half-frame?

[-doomed-]

I wasn't sure I just thought it had some sort of rudimentary rf on it. There's one In my local camera store

 

[delible]

Hello,

There isn't a rangefinder in the EE1.7 cameras that I know. You can set the distance pretty precisely by setting the distance on a scale surrounding the lens. When you do that, a fat needle under the bright frame in the VF moves from mountain (infinity) at the left to a head (2.6 ft) on the right. So it's the user setting the distance either on the scale around the lens or using the zones in the vf.

I had a longer post written but the site didn't recognize my previous login, required me to log in again, and everything was lost... so far now, I'll just stick with the particular question about the EE1.7. Hope this helps.

 

[shiro_kuro]

Here you go ... a half frame rangefinder 🙂

 

[1300Hz]

Here you go ... a half frame rangefinder 🙂

I saw one of those on the Bay a few months ago. Sold for more than US$ 50.000...

 

[ZeissFan]

Paying $50,000 for a camera is ludicrous. Of course, putting it into perspective, if you're a Wall Street trader, and you make $30 million a year, $50,000 probably doesn't seem like that much money.

But for many of us, $50,000 is a hell of a lot of money to spend on a camera.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It's a lot of money to spend on an automobile also.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've never seen a half-frame fixed-lens Rangefinder camera.

The Tessina is a Twin-Lens Reflex, and small frame size on 35mm film.

Oddly, there are 110 and 126 cameras with coupled rangefinders. But I can't think of any half-frame 35mm cameras with them. The Kodak Instamatic 500 was "going to be" a half-frame Retina, ended up as a 126 camera, no rangefinder.

 

[sevo]

I've never seen a half-frame fixed-lens Rangefinder camera.

Zeiss Ikon Tenax II. Not exactly half-frame (it was 24x24 square) and not fixed lens, though.

 

[Tom A]

With all due respect Tom, unless you had some rare non production Demi, according to the Canon Musem site, no Demis were produced with a rangefinder. There was a Demi that had two interchangeable lenses, but they were distance focused, not rangefinder coupled. All Demis were zone focused.

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/film/series_demi.html

It is quite possible that it wasen't a Demi - but it was a Canon, it was 1/2 frame and it had a built in rangefinder! Too bad that is now somewhere east of the Urals (and it was 15 years ago too). I am by no means an expert on Canon's - like some of their stuff - but not all!

 

[Satumango]

Robot Royal 18

Robot Royal 18

I realize it a bit of an old thread, but anyway, there was one true halfframe Robot Royal rangefinder: the Royal 18.

To sum it up (and my apologies for being pedantic 😉):

Robot I, II, IIa, Junior, Star and all Star derivatives : 24x24mm with 26mm screwmount (although there was a small difference in pre-war and post-war mounts)

Robot Royal II: 24x24mm, no rangefinder and a *30mm* screwmount.

Robot Royal III: 24x24mm, with rangefinder and bayonet mount

Robot Royal 18: 18x24mm, with rangefinder and bayonet mount

Robot Royal 24: 24x24mm, with rangefinder and bayonet mount

Robot Royal 36: 36x24mm, with rangefinder and bayonet mount

And then there was the Recorder line, those where Royals with their
"top cut off" (so no rangefinder nor viewfinder) featuring removable backs and attachment for a motordrive, these were intended for industrial / scientific / security purposes and were available in a range of formats including 18x24.

You will also see Star derivatives without viewfinder, etc. Those were also used in industry/scientific applications. And if you see a Robot II without viewfinder, it's problably a wartime model for use in airplanes.

Incidently, Royals with a letter "a" (or alpha?) after the serial number also have the removable backs and motordrive attachment, according to the manual I dowloaded here:

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/robot/royal_robot/royal_robot.htm

For a complete lineup (I guess) with an estimate of their value and some pictures see:

http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Berning-Robot/

For some more information and pictures, you can also take a look at http://corsopolaris.net/supercameras/robot/robot1.html (italian, but partly translated in english)

Hope that minimizes the confusion somewhat 😀

 

[jsrockit]

I wish Voigtlander would make a half-frame rangefinder....