What pocket money rangefinder?

bass_junkie83

bass_junkie83

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After years of trying to teach my wife how to use a camera with little interest, she had now decided that she is quite keen to learn. She wants to learn the fundamentals on something basic with as few bells and whistles as possible.

She has an old zenit slr that would do the job nicely which is in excellent condition and has a lot of sentimental value attached to it. She wants to do a photo a day project so she will be taking the camera with here everywhere and it would be a shame to damage the camera her grandad managed to look after son well for 40 odd years. And something a little more compact would be good.

Also I have never used one so it would be a new toy for me too. :D

But there are so many out there, what is the best option for something in the £30 - 40 maximum budget?

I have been look at the Olympus trip 35 and also the canonet. What about yashica, or even the Soviet offerings?

A usable metering system would be nice, but not essential.
 
You really can't go wrong with a Trip 35. As long as it's in good condition and the little red flag pops up that is!
 
Just to clarify, the trip 35 isn't a rangefinder. It uses zone focussing so you set it by distance. If you want a good rangefinder for not a lot of money I'd recommend either an Olympus 35RC or a Yashica 35GT. The Yashica is larger but both deliver excellent results with built in metering.

Cheers
Steve
 
ancient_mariner said:
The original Olympus PEN cameras were very nice too, if you can find one.
Click to expand...

Would you find one in budget?

The Trip is a lovely camera but it's not a rangefinder, it's zone focus only unless you spend more for either the RC, RD or SP. The Yashica Electro range have cracking lenses but are quite large unless you go for the CC or GX, both of which will cost over £100.

The Olympus XA range are a nice little clamshell design that protects to the lens, perfect for a camera that's thrown in a bag or kept in a pocket but again, only a couple in the range are true rangefinders.

The other thing to bear in mind is that many of these cameras are semi-automatic, aperture priority being rarer than shutter priority. If your other half wants full manual control to work on the fundamentals, that might become frustrating.

ETA beaten by Steve's fast fingers!
 
Although a cracking little camera the Trip is not a rangefinder, if you want a rangefinder with the addition of a little auto-help I would try and find either the Ricoh 500G or Konica C35 cheap as chips, no bigger than the Trip and very nice lenses. there's a bit more info on my sadly neglected 52 cameras challenge blog.


Konica & Ricoh
 
+1 for the Ricoh, I had one for a while nice camera but I never really used it.
 
The Canonet QL17 (or QL19) is a really nice rangefinder, excellent lens, robust as anything, but you'd be lucky to get a working example for the budget. The XA is nice but the rangefinder patch is dim and I've found a couple of examples to be unreliable. XA2 and above are zone focusing rather than rangefinders.

Not sure that the rangefinder bit will really be helpful to a learner; cheap rangefinders are hard to focus as the rangefinder patch tends to be dim, and may well be misaligned. Frustration is something you don't want at the start.

An Olympus mju 1 or (better) 2 would be within budget, and are great cameras, but are not rangefinders and probably a bit too auto for the job. No controls other than the shutter! Ignore the zooms. These are however extremely pocketable, so easy to take anywhere.

Going a bit bigger, and back to the SLR rather than a rangefinder, a Pentax ME with the 50mm 1.7 lens could be within budget and is a really great combo. and a lot lighter than another Zenit. An older Pentax Spotmatic variant might share lenses with the Zenit (M42 fitting)?
 
OM10 or its ilk are also worth a look. Not much bigger than larger rangefinders and with a larger range of available lenses.
 
Thanks you guys, some great advice as usual.
Didn't realise the trip wasn't a rangefinder. I actually started looking at them as they were recommended ona site I found last night while doing a bit of research.

Looking at the Olympus 35RC, looks lovely but appear to sell for about twice my maximum budget. Maybe one to consider for later should the bug catch.
The Yashica looks good and in budget as long as it is purchased overseas. ie http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yashica-E...357?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item339c3faefd

As for the Ricoh 500G, there don't seem to be many about, though I am keeping an eye on one right now. Are the 500ME of 500GX worth consideration?
Seems to be a fairly tidy example of the Konica for not a lot.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Konica-C3...268644?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item27f6bc6e24


Also a couple of others that I stumbled upon, are any of these worth looking at?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CANON-CAN...761212?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item35e3a8dc7c

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Minolta-A...031313?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item20f4cd08d1

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FED-2-Typ...ography_VintageCameras_SM&hash=item1c4ba3e47d
 
bass_junkie83 said:
As for the Ricoh 500G, there don't seem to be many about, though I am keeping an eye on one right now. Are the 500ME of 500GX worth consideration?
Seems to be a fairly tidy example of the Konica for not a lot.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Konica-C3...268644?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item27f6bc6e24
Click to expand...
So far as I could tell there isn't any difference between the various models of the Ricoh 500.

Thread passim: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/budget-compact.483768/#post-5576788
 
voigtlander vito clr. Cracking little rangefinder with a bright patch and a cracking lens, it also has a built in meter although you would be lucky to find one that still works.
There's one on ebay for 29.99 and free delivery and the meter works.

Andy
 
Just picked up a ricoh 500g on eBay. Looks good condition but description was lacking, we will have to see if it's in working order when it arrives. But got to be worth a punt for £16.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Just picked up a ricoh 500g on eBay. Looks good condition but description was lacking, we will have to see if it's in working order when it arrives. But got to be worth a punt for £16.
Click to expand...
Excellent! You can find a copy of the manual here
 
I've got an Olympus Trip however haven't managed to get any decent images out of it yet.

For that budget... mmmm... the only real rangefinder I can think of would be a Zorki 4/4k with Jupiter 8. I've posted some shots in the 'show us yer film shots' thread however here's a couple for reference :

Dad's Birthday, Zorki 4k, T-Max 400 @ 1600, T-Max Dev by _Jo Gray, on Flickr

Dad's Birthday, Zorki 4k, T-Max 400 @ 1600, T-Max Dev by _Jo Gray, on Flickr

Dad's Birthday, Zorki 4k, T-Max 400 @ 1600, T-Max Dev by _Jo Gray, on Flickr

I quite like it for B&W, the only criticism would be the viewfinder has a blue tint, no parallax compensation, no framelines, however is about 90% right for a Jupiter 8.
 
I got pretty good mileage out of cheap Yashica Minster rangefinders.
I am currently enjoying the use of a Nikon L35AF. It's a rangefinder, fully automatic (including autofocus), takes AA batteries and can likely be picked up for less than £30 no problem.
 
mustanir said:
I got pretty good mileage out of cheap Yashica Minster rangefinders.
I am currently enjoying the use of a Nikon L35AF. It's a rangefinder, fully automatic (including autofocus), takes AA batteries and can likely be picked up for less than £30 no problem.
Click to expand...

..or they can have my L35 AD for nothing if they pay postage ;)
 
mustanir said:
.
I am currently enjoying the use of a Nikon L35AF. It's a rangefinder, fully automatic (including autofocus), takes AA batteries and can likely be picked up for less than £30 no problem.
Click to expand...

nope
 
Yashicas and a lot of Japanese cameras of that 60-70's have a problem with the foam used for lightseals and, in the case of some Yashicas, in the shutter mechanisms as buffers. The foam disintegrates into a sticky mess (search for 'pad of death'). Avoid any coupled exposure meters with selenium cells as a rule, the cells die or get wildly inaccurate.

Many old Zorki/Feds are still OK, simple to repair and surprisingly robust and the LTM (leica thread) lenses can be reused on numerous cameras and macro rigs. Shutters can cause problems as oil has dried up so they run slowly or stick at low speed.. It's a bit of a minefield and you may find yourself taking up camera repair as a winter hobby. The pocket money rangefinder that I use sometimes is a Kiev 4 but that is a pig if it goes wrong being fundamentally a prewar Contax design and probably produced on the same machine tools..

They can all be fun to use but buy carefully - they weren't generally designed to be still in use after 50 years without even an oil change.
 
this applies to the FED/Zorki single shutter speed dial system which was derived from the Leica two dial system. If you are interested there is a good description of it here I haven't broken one yet by trying to set speed before wind on but I'm sure that if you force it it would break.
 
Cheers for that, (guessing!) Bill. Will have to dig mine out and have another play to see if it's burgered or just out of synch. I inherited it from my FiL as already iffy.
 
I have two Yashica Rangefinders. No light leaks - no "POD" problems - and meters bang on :)

Electro 35 G and Minister III. Lovely cameras to use!

 
The ricoh 500g turned up today. Doesn't appear to be in bad nick. A few scratches on the body but for the price I wasn't expecting a museum piece. The light seals are shot so I have a sheet of foam on the way, along with a new battery to see if the meter is still working too.

Just need to get a film for it now. I can't believe how expensive they are, from when I was 10........
 
I haven't checked the chronology but I think those post date the foam problem and the Yashica G has a CdS meter so not so liable to long term failure as selenium. It has a mercury cell but substitutes are available. Lightseals are easy enough to replace anyway, the 'pad of death' required major disassembly. I have had two Electo GTNs. I wrecked the first repairing the PoD, the second was OK, I had learned the tricks. The Yashica range was very good and the Yashinon lens capable of excellent results.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
The ricoh 500g turned up today. Doesn't appear to be in bad nick. A few scratches on the body but for the price I wasn't expecting a museum piece. The light seals are shot so I have a sheet of foam on the way, along with a new battery to see if the meter is still working too.

Just need to get a film for it now. I can't believe how expensive they are, from when I was 10........
Click to expand...

Your local Poundland may have rolls of Agfa Vista 200 (400 if you're lucky) for.... £1..... Its actually re-branded Fuji 200 film and is actually pretty good, it is especially nice when converted to mono. Boots usually have 2 for 1 on Ilford b&w which makes it reasonably inexpensive.

Andy
 
Thanks, I shall take a look in boots.
I did take a look in poundland as I saw the thread here. Unfortunately neither of the two in my town sell film at all.
 
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