So what IS the verdict on the Bessa L?

[chug]

You wont regret buying the L 🙂

 

[Elmer Fishpaw]

I love my "L"!! I love my 25mm Skopar too!! Only complaint for me, maybe not anyone else, is the finder you place in the "hot shoe" can come off fairly easily. I lost one in some parking lot. It's tiny and plastic, so you'll have to keep an eye on it. I've found the square metal hood you can buy for $40 or so is really nice and protects the lens. Flare is reduced of course.
Bessa L and the 25 Skopar...nothing better for walking around!

 

[That Guy]

So what are you waitng for? Go get an L already...! 😀

 

[BillBingham2]

If you are looking for a good user, the L is it. While a FED or Zork may last longer, they all lack the built in meter and in the end (after CLAing) will cost you more.

I have 2 Ls, one for my 25/4 which I carry most of the time, the other for my 15mm. They are the perfect lens cap for a wideangle lens.

Get one and after a few months, if you do not like it, ebay it. If they are not abused, they hold their value well.

I switched to Bessas (T & L) when I started to carry cameras around my young kids. Much easier on the wallet to replace a Bessa that gets trashed than a Leica M6!!!

B2 (;->

 

[Doug]

Seems to me the 25mm Skopar is the perfect partner for the Bessa-L. I have used the 25 on a focusing body too, but was somehow dissatisfied then with the lack of RF coupling on the lens. But on the L, there's no RF anyway so one can just "go with the flow" and guess distance! Odd mental quirk? Or maybe others have felt the same...

 

[pvdhaar]

I have used the 25 on a focusing body too, but was somehow dissatisfied then with the lack of RF coupling on the lens. But on the L, there's no RF anyway so one can just "go with the flow" and guess distance! Odd mental quirk? Or maybe others have felt the same...

Same here Doug, have used the CV25 on the HexarRF and BessaT. It feels sort of incomplete 😕 It's worse on the HexarRF where the built in viewfinder shows a FOV that corresponds to 25mm and tempts one to leave the external finder at home. Looking through the finder there's always this OOF rangefinder patch causing insecurity. (Compact package though).

Still the images are spectacular 🙂

 

[Doug]

It's worse on the HexarRF where the built in viewfinder shows a FOV that corresponds to 25mm and tempts one to leave the external finder at home. Looking through the finder there's always this OOF rangefinder patch causing insecurity. (Compact package though).

Yes, very similar experience here with the 25 on my CLE... Compact, handy, FoV pretty close, yet I was inclined to get the 28 Skopar mostly for the RF coupling (and parallax-compensated framelines too).