Which classic rangefinder would you recommend?

Bill wrs1145

A native Texan
Local time
12:12 AM
Joined
Nov 12, 2022
Messages
212
I've got a Canon L1 and a Model P and want to buy a classic RF. Either a Canon, Nicca, or a Leotax LTM RF. Which would you recommend?

Many thanks,
Bill
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've got a Canon L1 and a Model P and want to buy a classic RF.

More important than what you want to spend is what you want to get.

Do you want iconic? An experience? A "daily driver"? A curiosity?

For example: Argus C3, Contax III, Leica II, Speed Graphic, Super Ikonta. All classics in their own right... and all very different experiences.
 
A Leica iif with a 1950s Summarit 50/1.5.

Why? Because I own one, and it's a brilliant kit.

Not exactly cheap, though. The camera didn't set me back a small mint, but getting it restored to modern day functionality did.

Otherwise, yes, the OP should give us more information. Starting with, how much does he want to spend? A $$ figure, please, NOT "as little as I can get away with."
 
If you have to have another, an M3 with a 50 Summitar or Summarit. Or the M2 mentioned above with a 35 Summaron. Doesn't get more classic.

My first M was an M3 DS with a Summarit on it that I got in a used camera store in Oakland in around 1993. Went back the next week to add the single stroke M3 with a 35 goggled Summaron. Really smooth cameras, really nice results. And in the 1990's these lenses were lower-contrast than the Summicrons of the day. Here's a snap of the family group with an M2 too. The M2 is wearing a 21mm lens and an external finder. It also has one of Tom Abramson's Rapidwinders on there: perhaps not strictly classic, but super useful and a lot of fun. I have added various gadgets: the release buttons and the cases.

I can't say -- despite my fanboy nature -- that any of these will do better for you in terms of final output than the two excellent cameras you already have. But these are solid machines, made at a time when cameras of this quality were designed to be serviced and kept in service rather than replaced when the next flavor came along. Wonderful viewfinders in the Leicas, although the Nikons of this era let you view with both eyes open (one looking through the VF, one past the camera) when using a 50mm lens for a head's up display effect that superimposes the framelines on the world and which was really light years ahead of its time. When I got these, I was mainly shooting with a Nikon F4s and with a 70's era Hasselblad, so it was a very different way of seeing the world, and one on which I got hooked.

I would say too that if you are looking for a classic RF camera, look for a repair person who is comfortable servicing cameras from that era at the same time. The cameras below are coming up on 75 years old . . . eventually, something will break or need adjustment.

1713282351964.jpeg
1713282378570.jpeg
 
Back
Top Bottom