ssmc
Well-known
Hi all,
I'm thinking about getting into rangefinders, probably with a Bessa R3A. At the moment, for shooting film I'm using a Minolta X-700 with a 50/1.4 and a couple other lenses, but the 50 gets the most use (I've been shooting with 45/40/50 primes for more than 25 years so I guess you could say I'm pretty happy with those FLs). When shooting landscapes I tend to go wider (24-28mm).
My question is this: to start with, should I go for a 50 like I'm used to, or would it be too much like a duplication of what I already use? I like the idea of the 1:1 VF on the R3; it just happens that the X-700 with a 50mm lens works out so that you can shoot with your left eye open as the apparent mag is extremely close to 100%. But I wonder if maybe going a little wider would be helpful in "differentiating" the rangefinder from the SLR? I was considering the 35/2.5 as it's very small, from the reviews I've seen it's sharp wide open, and apparently you can use the entire VF on the R3 to approximate the field of a 35mm lens. I don't wear glasses.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!
Scott
I'm thinking about getting into rangefinders, probably with a Bessa R3A. At the moment, for shooting film I'm using a Minolta X-700 with a 50/1.4 and a couple other lenses, but the 50 gets the most use (I've been shooting with 45/40/50 primes for more than 25 years so I guess you could say I'm pretty happy with those FLs). When shooting landscapes I tend to go wider (24-28mm).
My question is this: to start with, should I go for a 50 like I'm used to, or would it be too much like a duplication of what I already use? I like the idea of the 1:1 VF on the R3; it just happens that the X-700 with a 50mm lens works out so that you can shoot with your left eye open as the apparent mag is extremely close to 100%. But I wonder if maybe going a little wider would be helpful in "differentiating" the rangefinder from the SLR? I was considering the 35/2.5 as it's very small, from the reviews I've seen it's sharp wide open, and apparently you can use the entire VF on the R3 to approximate the field of a 35mm lens. I don't wear glasses.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!
Scott
