Thinnest mechanical slr with 28-35 or 50mm

[Scrambler]

SLR's are not "pocketable".

Get over it.

If you want TTL viewing, with a convential mirror reflex system, then the 1/2 frame Olympus Pen F with a 38mm f2.8 pancake lens will be the thinnest. The 38mm pancake is rare and breathingtakingly expensive, if you can even find one. If you can't afford the Zuiko 40mm f2 for OM then you won't like the price on the 38mm f2.8.

Quite honestly your requirments are at cross purposes.

There's one for auction today in South Australia (see other thread re auction) expected range 50-100 AUD!?!

 

[Frontman]

How about Pentax MX with 40/2.8 Pentax M lens. It could be had under $200, and should be pretty slim. I don't own it anymore, but remember it being rather on a slimmer side.

Best choice, but the MX is getting to be a "cult" camera, and finding a good body with the 40/2.8 for $200 won't be easy.

 

[zuiko85]

The problem with making sweeping statements like that, is that someone, somewhere, will sometimes prove you wrong...

Your post made me get my Contaflex I out of the cabinet (again) and change into a pair of jeans. Guess what? The camera fits into the hip pocket with a (little) bit of room to spare. In fact, as I'm sitting here typing this, it is still in my pocket. Yes, I'm conscious of the fact it is in there, but, if I had to wander about for a couple of hours it wouldn't be much of an issue. In fact, now that the well-named Mr Goodman has sent me a replacement prism for it, as soon as I've swapped that and sorted the shutter out, I'm going to do precisely that. I usually have a (larger, later) Contaflex close to hand, anyway, so it could actually make my life easier...

Besides which: how big is the pocket anyway? Nobody has asked that one, until now. The do come on different sizes, you know...
Cheers
Brett

Sure, I've got jeans too, but even sticking a little Contaflex, first model I presume, takes a mighty baggy pocket. I wear a vest with cargo pockets and those are the smallest size pockets I have ever tucked my Pen F into, with any lens. I suppose you could also put a Pentax 110 SLR into a pocket, it is after all, an SLR, but really not what the OP was asking about. Really, even with a lens cap thick lens the mirror box of any affordable 35mm SLR sets a size limit on thickness. Most of the lens flange to film distances range from 42mm (Canon FL/FD) to 46.5mm. (Nikon F) Add an extra 5~10mm for a pressure plate and camera back and the body itself is going to be about to 2 inches thick, without any lens. By the time you add even a 1 inch long lens, that is if one is available in your selected mount, then you have a minimum 3 inch thick camera. If you find a jeans pocket big enough to stick it in and are so inclined to do so, have at it, I still say SLR's are not pocketable.

As an aside the Alpa reflex body at 37.8mm has to be the thinnest flange to film distance for a swinging mirror, full frame 35mm SLR, but even if you find one you can afford, what about a lens for it?

I am really not a crabby person but it seems to me the OP is describing a fantasy camera.

 

[archeophoto]

If your work environment is so bad that you can't use a Nikon FM2, the camera of choice for many severe weather environments, then I would suggest looking into a Nikonos II or III.

 

[Pablito]

Well, the OP seems to have vanished.

 

[someonenameddavid]

The Corfield periflex... leica size, m39 screw mount with TTL viewing... not the entire field , but it is ttl.

David

 

[Rodchenko]

There's a Periflex on ebay at the moment.

Well, most of one.

Probably.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Corfield-...ography_VintageCameras_SM&hash=item232f4b3f8f