Recommendation for Basic Everydaycarry?

Lobo

Lobo

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hi,
its a a few months ago, i traded a few books for a old Voigtländer VF101. I was very fascinated from the start, with this Camera. I forgot how interessting it could be to take pictures with a chemical/analog camera, instead of digicams.
Now if infected with the analogvirus, to be honestly i very into vintages stuff, (i hope i could work for a museum when i pass my exams).

the only thing abozt the voightländer is its heavy weight with 490g.taking it all the day in my daybag hurts. and its aperaturepriority.
is there some camera with that vintage look, full manual mode, and a bit lighter?

greetings
 
Many questions:

- What's your budget?

- Plastic or metal camera?

- Japanese or German/European?

- Folding camera or nonfolding?

- Interchangeable lenses?

- Rangefinder or scale focus?

- Integrated meter or no meter?
 
Smaller Yashica Electros (below full sized G-series) are very good as daily cameras, especially with small (read - light) f/2.8 lenses. 35MC, 35FC to name a few. You get aperture priority and manual focus. Cover good 85% of my needs.
 
-Different Pitcures should be taken, but mostly non-moving objects outside, at daylight. perhaps still streetscenes
-is should be stable and robust, but i know this means more metal,more weight. so balance is everything.
-no need for interchanceable lenses, it makes the camera heavier and near a SLR
-it doesnt matter if german, japanese, russian
-i dont know much about fondlin cameras, are they trustable?
-where is the difference rangefinder vs scalefocus?
-would be good when the differente shutterspeeds will be available without batteries needs
 
Lobo said:
the only thing abozt the voightländer is its heavy weight with 490g.taking it all the day in my daybag hurts. and its aperaturepriority.
is there some camera with that vintage look, full manual mode, and a bit lighter?

greetings
Click to expand...

Pardon me for being blunt.
If carrying a 0.5 kilo camera in a bag all day long hurts you, there is not a whole lot of other vintage cameras that are *significantly* lighter than that.

The lightest RF camera I can think of is the Olympus XA at 212.1g. Would that make a difference? It's also aperture priority.
 
sadly its not the only thing i carry with me, with books, papers etc. (its a sign of our time that we have to take that much stuff with us, supermobile-nomadic lifestyle)
the Olympus XA is not exactly what i like, those plasticlook reminds me of that compact AutoFocus 80s cams. i'm sure i will take great pics, but its not only the pictures, what its all about,right?
i know there is not much room to save weight, but perhaps something around 300-400g would be great and with the manualmode it would give me more possibilitys
 
Some many cameras, so little time......

There are about a million different directions you can go and if you ask 10 members here you will get 14 different answers odds are all of them right. Take a read here just to mess with your mind......

http://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm

Great starting point info.

Here are my recommendations.

Leica IIIa with a clean 50 leica lens. Get it CLAed (not sure where you are), use it all the time and you have a friend for life. Heavy but not too, strong like bull, a classic.

Bessa L with CV 25/4 Snap-Shoot Skopar (with Bright Line Finder). Built in meter, manual shutter, world class lens, my favorite street camera of all time. Zone focusing (read guessing) is very easy to master with this lens. Not robust but reasonably reliable enough to carry everywhere. No rangefinder to get knocked out of alignment works in hot or cold, battery or not.

If you're into automation more any of the Ricoh GR cameras are small, strong, great glass and have enough manual control for when you want it. The R-1 is an interesting camera with a 30mm main lens and 24mm switch. Not quite as robust as the GR line, but the GR line came from the R-1.

Olympus XA line is wonderful but without a lot of manual controls. The Konica S3 is sized right but again might be more electronics than you want.

While you seem to not want digital take a look at the Ricoh GRD (I, II, or III) as an option. Their controls are wonderfully basic and logical, sized about the same as the GR line, world class glass, and priced reasonable. I got mine from Tony at Pop Flash Photo here in the states, not sure where you are. The number of US distributors is very small. I use it in snap mode (I set the focus point) or spot focus and it's just as fast as my Bessa L / CV 25/4 combo, but that is me.

You can not go wrong with a working user Leica III a/b/c/.... it's a living classic for a reason.

B2 (;->
 
Olympus 35RC seems like another potential contender if you specifically want a more traditional look and manual control. It is around 400g. For traditional styling though, I don't know if you're going to get much lighter than that.

There are a bunch of cameras around the same size as your current but with either manual control or shutter priority but I don't know if those would be any better given your weight goal.
 
Last edited:
Mablo said:
+1 for Rollei 35. It's pure classic and feels like it too. A connoisseur's choice.
Click to expand...

If you get a good one.

Bad ones (= abused) are not always sharp and can chew up film.

The correlation between price and quality is not always high. I'd ONLY buy from a dealer, with return privileges. Pay more? Yes, and usually for a better camera.

Cheers,

R.
 
+1 on Bill's suggestions for cameras AND information.

Good luck.

Giorgio

BillBingham2 said:
Some many cameras, so little time......

There are about a million different directions you can go and if you ask 10 members here you will get 14 different answers odds are all of them right. Take a read here just to mess with your mind......

http://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm

Great starting point info.

Here are my recommendations.

Leica IIIa with a clean 50 leica lens. Get it CLAed (not sure where you are), use it all the time and you have a friend for life. Heavy but not too, strong like bull, a classic.

Bessa L with CV 25/4 Snap-Shoot Skopar (with Bright Line Finder). Built in meter, manual shutter, world class lens, my favorite street camera of all time. Zone focusing (read guessing) is very easy to master with this lens. Not robust but reasonably reliable enough to carry everywhere. No rangefinder to get knocked out of alignment works in hot or cold, battery or not.

If you're into automation more any of the Ricoh GR cameras are small, strong, great glass and have enough manual control for when you want it. The R-1 is an interesting camera with a 30mm main lens and 24mm switch. Not quite as robust as the GR line, but the GR line came from the R-1.

Olympus XA line is wonderful but without a lot of manual controls. The Konica S3 is sized right but again might be more electronics than you want.

While you seem to not want digital take a look at the Ricoh GRD (I, II, or III) as an option. Their controls are wonderfully basic and logical, sized about the same as the GR line, world class glass, and priced reasonable. I got mine from Tony at Pop Flash Photo here in the states, not sure where you are. The number of US distributors is very small. I use it in snap mode (I set the focus point) or spot focus and it's just as fast as my Bessa L / CV 25/4 combo, but that is me.

You can not go wrong with a working user Leica III a/b/c/.... it's a living classic for a reason.

B2 (;->
Click to expand...
 
Lobo said:
Olympus XA is not exactly what i like, those plasticlook reminds me of that compact AutoFocus 80s cams. i'm sure i will take great pics, but its not only the pictures, what its all about,right?
Click to expand...

Actually, it IS all about the pictures, the gear comes second or third or even last out of many variables.

Phil Forrest
 
Phil_F_NM said:
Actually, it IS all about the pictures, the gear comes second or third or even last out of many variables.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...
i dont think so. Making perfect pictures cant be the only reason why using 40-50 years old cameras. there are lots of easier to use, affordable cameras with autofocus out there. and more analog professional but cheap SLRs. even the digicams have much benefits.
but using gear is more then to reaching a goal. its the way, the working with the stuff, etc. and as a interesst of historic gear im more in love with old stuff.

So the Olympus RC looks very interessting, also the rollei 35.
 
I used the Olympus 35RC for about a year, lovely little camera. The lens is perhaps a bit overrated sharpness wise, but it certainly renders quite characteristic results. I still regret giving it away.
 
I got rather recently a nice Konica Auto S3 for similar purpose. The camera is relatively small and the lens delivers very nice results (I am about to get some decent scans soon) - and is really pretty 😛 . But should I do this again (getting a fixed lens compact camera, that is) I may as well go a bit bigger, heavier and expensive and get the Hexar AF. I know I will get it one day eventually :angel:

The S3 is shutter priority, but it is rather easy to get used to that. The camera is nice to use.

I had Olypus XA before and while I liked the size (tiny - and true RF with aperture priority), I did not like the strong vignetting and wide open performance so much.
 
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