Quietest Camera?

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Am I correct in thinking a Leica is still the quietest camera? The main reason for my liking thumb film advance is the lack of motor noise, meaning you can choose when to move the next frame in sensitive circumstances, though SLRs always have mirror slap of course.

Any other contenders for quietest camera when shutter and drive are taken into account?
 
My Canonet QL17 was pretty quiet. Now it's absolutely silent, as the shutters jammed solid and won't do anything :shake:
 
HMM!!!! interesting one

I have a Canon Canonet which is whispering quiet but I think my Yashica 124G is even quieter.

Are we talking about just 35mm cameras?

Or including medium format of which I would think many of the folding cameras are as quiet if not quieter as the Leicas.
 
Knikki said:
HMM!!!! interesting one

I have a Canon Canonet which is whispering quiet but I think my Yashica 124G is even quieter.

Are we talking about just 35mm cameras?

Or including medium format of which I would think many of the folding cameras are as quiet if not quieter as the Leicas.
Click to expand...

Good point - my Voigtländer Perkeo is pretty much silent.
 
Olympus OM-1 was pretty quiet...
Most noise from SLRs is the mirror flapping about... rangefinders tend to be quieter anyway.
I think the quietest was an old camera called the Ermanox, used by a social reportage photographer in the 1930's called Eric Salomon who was murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust...
Leica has a reputation as being pretty quiet - faster than 30th sec, I'd agree, but at speeds below that there's a slight whispering 'zi-iing' noise as the shutter recycles...

I'd say that the latest digital P&S cameras would be quietest - as long as you turn the faux shutter noise off...
 
Most RF are very quiet; especially the small pocketable 35mm RF from the 70s - the RC, VF101, Rollei 35,- and even the Contax IIa from the 50s - all of them are super silent.

The Leica are supposed to be hush quiet; but honestly I see no big difference between my CL and my other RFs
 
ILFORD SPORTSMAN. 35mm quietest i have ever heard.
 
Rangefinders are quieter than SLRs as there is no mirror slap, which is where 90% of the noise comes from, not the shutter. If you use mirror lock up and slow the shutter to 5 seconds and then click the button on an SLR, you will see how quiet they are without mirror movement.
 
Olympus xa1-4 leaf shutter can hardly hear it very discreet
 
Well in a completely scientific and not in anyway biased test I conducted yesterday with the unknowing involvement of a guy photographing near me I can confirm that a Canonet QL19 is substantially quieter than a Leica.
 
TheBigYin said:
My Canonet QL17 was pretty quiet. Now it's absolutely silent, as the shutters jammed solid and won't do anything :shake:
Click to expand...

Have you tried whacking it very, very hard?

And in a sucking eggs answer - when that's happened to me it's invariably been something to do with the annoying timer switch half (but not completely) coming on.
 
The Canon Pellix SLR is the quietest SLR I have used there no moving mirror..just the sound of the shutter
http://www.mir.SPAM/rb/photography/companies/canon/fdresources/pellix/
 
Any old 10x8 camera with a barrel lens. You just use your top hat to expose and replace over the lens when exposure time is up. :D

Any rangefinder such as Zeiss ikon or a Mamiya 7II which has leaf shutters in lens lens but no mirror unlike hasselblads which make a lot of noise.
 
gingerjon said:
Have you tried whacking it very, very hard?

And in a sucking eggs answer - when that's happened to me it's invariably been something to do with the annoying timer switch half (but not completely) coming on.
Click to expand...

Not yet - I think it's double munged, because it jammed, and I was messing about trying to get it to clear, then put it down, a friend picked it up and siad "is it something to do with this..." and shoved the annoying timer switch to the far end as well!
 
Interesting stuff. I hadn't thought of locking the mirror up as a sound deadening device so I just tried it on the Nikkormat. The shutter still goes Ker-chung!
The quietest shutter I recall was probably a Mamiya C330. Like Arkady said, the OM1 had a very quiet movement for an SLR. The Mju compact is virtually silent except for the ruddy film advance.
 
The quietest camera I have is the Canon EOS 5, doesn't even frighten the birds when taking pictures close to them.

John :)
 
Just messing with the Fujica 35-EE... it's sounds like a mouse sneezing and is probably a bit quieter too!
 
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