Taking the Plunge? Which RF to start with

Re: Followup

Re: Followup

Hi,

In your shoes I'd be very wary of what you have gleaned from, I guess, the internet.

Firstly, resale values are a very variable thing. I have a spreadsheet showing my cameras and once looked at what I sold to see if it was worth it and the answer was "I dunno" because - looking at about 70 sales of Canons, Leicas and Nikons - I would say that you get your money back on about half but sometimes the loss or gain is in the region of small change. F'instance making a profit of a pound or so doesn't really count as there's packing and time and fuel to the post office and so on. And for those reasons a loss of a pound is even worse.

Reliability and servicing; beware there's no way you can predict these; luck plays a very large part. Examples a Leica was taken to them and done on the spot and no charge and another Leica got an estimate so high that I could buy 10 of them on ebay... One I have owned for years and had serviced etc wouldn't cover the costs if sold at the best sale price I have seen...

Holding them and using them is the best way to judge but you need to hire them or buy them and use them to know them properly. And what works and is liked at first may annoy later on and vice versa. It a very vague thing.

Anyway, I'll wish you luck. If your reasoning has suggested a Nikon then why not start there?

Regards, David
 
Number 1 in OP list...
I would highly recommend to hold and operate NS3/2K. But it might be mission impossible.
I asked one known photog why he sold it. I would not provide his detailed answer here. :)
I respect Nikon fans club feelings. Just search for reviews of this camera at least.
 
mgpsmith said:
I'm a technically-minded amateur, almost entirely shoot 35mm, mostly B/W. My process focuses on the viewfinder and film development. I've stuck to Kentmere or Fomapan 100 for the past +/- 500 feet of film and so am starting to get a sense of these films. Most "printing" is done via scanning. I don't manipulate the scanned image.

I have a range of old Nikon SLRs and a couple of "inexpensive" non-SLRs (Kodak Signet 35, Voigtlander VitoII). Each has its own charms. I have found that my feelings about what I "see" depends on the instrument; creative vision juices seem to come from different boxes. I've found myself most comfortable with a plain pentaprism F using an old LunaPro to guide exposure choice. A 50 or 35mm f/2 lenses are my prime lenses; I sometimes use a 20 or 24mm, rarely mount a telephoto, and almost never use zoom (although a 35-105 on F3 body is a good travel kit).

The VitoII came to me recently, it has been a pleasure to use but has some limitations. It's a good pocket camera. More important it has me now thinking of a nice RF. If I go this route, I want a premium instrument but one in "good user" condition. Preferably budget $1k (or less) but would stretch to $2-2500 for exactly "the right thing," body/lens/(accessories) complete. Leica and Nikon RFs hold the most conceptual interest for me - Don't need a collection of lenses, just one nice prime (35 or 50).

IF I make this move, I'd like comments from users about handling, pro/con of "obvious choices," etc... At this point I think I want to hear ownership/user comparative evaluation of the Nikon RFs and as they compare to an M3/4/5.

thanks
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You'll likely get a lot of responses to this kind of question. Some will talk about "resale" value, others will talk about mystical properties of <you fill in the manufacturer> cameras/lenses.

I used Nikons (older, "F" series) for years and Leica rangefinders as well. I sold the Nikons when I no longer needed to meet editorial deadlines, etc., and I didn't need to carry lots of extra weight and lenses. I stuck with Leica because I liked the quality of the images obtained from their lenses---we're talking about "M" series, think M2, M3, ..., etc.

FWIW, I would choose the glass (optics) that I think will work for what I'm trying to do, if possible, and then select the best "host," i.e., camera body that supports those lenses.Of course, it's possible that other considerations may arise---such as availability, affordability, etc.

The photographer's eye should determine the choice of tool, and not vice versa---unless, of course, you're being paid for a particular deliverable and were told to use a specific tool.
 
mgpsmith said:
Don't need a collection of lenses, just one nice prime (35 or 50).
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For this reason alone I wonder why 95% of the responses so far have centered around interchangeable-lens RFs when there are a host (I mean really a lot) of excellent fixed-lens RFs from the 50s through the 70s featuring great lenses (often 45mm), finders and ergonomics. Any of these could get you rolling with a RF and provide excellent optics while you decide if a RF is, in fact, what you’re into. Most of these cameras will cost approximately 1/10 your budget.

Just because you have a healthy budget doesn’t mean you need to spend it. Try a Konica IIIa, Canon GL17, Yashica Electro, etc.... for a while and see if you dig it. Is it a vintage Leica? No. Does it need to be? No. If you’re not changing lenses you don’t need a “system” camera.

Just food for thought.
 
likely sound advice - I've very much enjoyed my Vito II and even my Signet 35. The "budget" is created on-demand by selling other stuff, so it's really (in a sense) trading the historical enjoyment and present value of past projects in for a new project. If making photographs were the only aspect of what anybody reading this does, we'd all have something like a Canon G12 or Powershot S100. Great images and easy to use. For me part of the enjoyment of film photography is the interaction with a really precision piece of machinery. I've found that the camera in my hand in part defines what I find interesting to photograph. I know it's not supposed to work that way, and maybe an objective observer would not see any technical, topical, or compositional differences in my photographs. Nonetheless, except for the pros amongst you, we all do this for whatever defines an enjoyable experience for each of us. I've been wondering what I would feel and see if I tried a classic RF. I'm not yet sure what about RF vs. SLR seems to attract me, and so probably won't "jump" until I understand that better. But part of defining that is having a sense what's out there, gets used, and why.
I appreciate all the input from all of you. It's been interesting to read what people have to say.
thanks again.
 
Phil, Bernard,

Have a look and hold/operate these M, if one can please you:
- Leica M4, M4-2, M4-P, M2 if you want something cool for 35mm lens
- don't forget Leica M3 with Summaron 35mm (for M3 "goggled") look that some like other hate
- M5 with its non intrusive light meter indicator in VF and the best handling M in my stable and so "big/ugly for most" that the price is low for what it gives in joy (very quiet and smooth also), you must hold and operate one M5 before taking decision

Arnaud
 
I'll second going to a shop that has these cameras and getting one in your hands. You might not like it as much as you think you would. And either way, there's no way to know until you actually hold one and look it over in person. Buying stuff because the internet says to buy stuff is a good way to waste a lot of time and money.
 
mgpsmith said:
For me part of the enjoyment of film photography is the interaction with a really precision piece of machinery. I've found that the camera in my hand in part defines what I find interesting to photograph. I know it's not supposed to work that way, and maybe an objective observer would not see any technical, topical, or compositional differences in my photographs. Nonetheless, except for the pros amongst you, we all do this for whatever defines an enjoyable experience for each of us. I've been wondering what I would feel and see if I tried a classic RF.
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Just to be clear, the cameras I'm talking about in my previous post are not toys and they're certainly not point'n'shoots. They may not have the cachet or the snob appeal of some other cameras, but they'll shoot better pictures than most of us are capable of. I'm certainly no pro and I completely appreciate the love of a finely made machine too. I have plenty of vintage cameras including some very nice interchangeable lens RFs but I still wouldn't recommend them as someone's first RF. If you're just dipping your toes in the water, you can get a Kodak Retina IIa or a Zeiss Contessa (both incredibly beautiful German rangefinders from the 1950s with outstanding lenses) for under $150 in very good condition. The Konica IIIa I mentioned earlier or, perhaps, a Ricoh 500 and now you're looking two very finely crafted Japanese RFs from the same time period. All of these are serious cameras. They're just not cameras that have interchangeable lenses. There are dozens more from both Germany and Japan (Agfa, Olympus, Fujica, Petri.....) that can all be had for peanuts because they are fixed lens cameras but don't let that lead you to believe that that necessarily makes them lower quality. These ain't Powershots! They're classics in their own right.

I respect the suggestions others have made - not a single camera that's been suggested would disappoint you - but I still firmly believe that if you started with a simple fixed lens camera and tried the RF thing that way for a while, even if it's just a few months, you'd be in a much better position to know what you might like (or dislike) about the "bigger" players such as Leica, Contax, Nikon, Voigtlander and such. Then you could add one of those to the arsenal (it's okay to have more than one, y'know! ;))

mgpsmith said:
I'm not yet sure what about RF vs. SLR seems to attract me, and so probably won't "jump" until I understand that better. But part of defining that is having a sense what's out there, gets used, and why.
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And everyone here is trying to help you figure that out. A RF will almost definitely make you shoot differently than you would with an SLR. Each has its pros and cons (which is why I - and so many others - shoot both).

If your local library has a copy, check out Rangefinder by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz. Lots of good info there for a RF noobie.

Also, look at this:
https://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm
Soooooo much interesting to read from a very knowledgeable source!

And this:
http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/index-frameset.html?index-body.html.html~mainFrame
She's another extremely knowledgeable source

Have fun researching. Handle as many cameras in person as possible. Maybe borrow a RF if you can.

My first was a $10 Petri Color Corrected Super 1.9 (Japan, circa 1959) from a yard sale. There are "better" cameras out there but I took some great pictures with that one, learned to love RFs in the process and was much better educated when I bought my next one (okay.... far more than one). I can't promise that your experience will be the same as mine, but I think it's a better approach than just going for the top of the heap right off the bat.
 
Long long time ago, I began to use Canonet 19QL belonging to my wife.
I didn't know by then that I was hooked to rangefinder.


Some decades of SLR, then Leica M along for different styles of picture takings.


And now only RF use, I didn't understand why before I had a look through
a SBOOI 1:1 finder that was supposed to be used with Leica LTM.


Now I use with pleasure SBOOI/SBLOO with my Ms and sometimes with SLRs.
 
Alternately, you could choose a Bessa R, and a 35 or 50: a rather better vf than just about every other choice available, I think. If M-mount lenses are "necessary", there are the R2 or R3 models. Those also can have auto exposure (A or M variants). The R and the Rm models only use the battery for the meter.
You ought to be able to stay with in budget fairly easily--that would keep your spouse content with this, I hope.

There are LOTS of really good to great rf cameras out there but value for $ with the Bessas is very hard to beat, I think.

Wanting to actually handle the choices before you buy is a great idea: I don't have that option and have, over the years, bought other wise good cameras that just did not suit me and I only learned that after purchase.
Good luck!
Rob
 
More of an SLR guy myself, but over the last decades I've owned and shot a trunk full of new and old range finders -- Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, Canon (II, IIA, M3, M4, M5, M6 M6ttl, M7, MP, S2, S3, L1). I currently own just the II, M3, and S2.

Although in terms of value (i.e., 'bang for the buck') it's hard to beat a Nikon or Canon, their viewfinders, however, are nowhere near as good as a Leica, in my experience. So based on the premise that first impressions are everything, I would recommend the Leica.

Leica are more expensive then the others, but they have a stronger resale market. Shop carefully and you'll probably make $$ if you sell later. The other big benefit of a Leica is the sheer magnitude of lenses available in M mount -- Leica, Zeiss, Voigtlander. Big fan of voigtlander here for their value.
 
rbiemer said:
Alternately, you could choose a Bessa R, and a 35 or 50: a rather better vf than just about every other choice available, I think.
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Yep - agreed. I got a Bessa R a couple of years ago, and the VF is superb. In fact it's a lovely camera all-round. :)
 
RObert Budding said:
Skip the miniature formats - unless you plan to do a lot of low light shooting. The FUJIFILM GW690III is excellent, or go with a Mamiya 7 if you want interchangeable lenses.
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This.

Mamiya 6
Mamiya 7
All the Fuji 645, 670, 680 and 690 rangefinders
Bronica RF645
Makina 67 and 670

They all create much higher quality images than any Leica film camera and lens, most have light meters, and apart from the Mamiya 7, are generally less expensive.
 
Some wise sages found within this thread, l personally mainly shoot with leica ltm bodies for my rangefinder needs, sure there are les fussy/quirky cameras out there but hey which other cameras make you want to have a celebratory dance and a cup of tea after you have successfully loaded them, a IIIg is a very nice camera to own and shoot
 
If you just wanted to dip your toe to see if rangefinders are for you you could always dabble with something like an Olympus 35 RC to get you started, it has tip top optics
 
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