Originally Posted by
Rick_D
On one end of the scale are Leica M series cameras and lenses and on the other are a vast collection of mostly Japanese fixed and interchangeable lens rangefinders. There are oddball Soviet and European makers, too.
I'd investigate the film experience before buying a film camera. If you want to take the plunge buy something in proven good condition, as repairs are hard to find. I'd go 60s-80s SLR myself, as the selection is vast. The pentaprism hump is a small price to pay for avoiding the complexity of a rangefinder mechanism.
No worries as to the 1st... this isn't my first film camera (tm?), and it's actually digital, (above the point-n-shoot level, anyway,) that doesn't interest me much, at least on the camera side.
That's good to know about rangefinders, though. I'd have thought that the rangefinder design would be the less complex... it just seems that way, plus it's the older technology. I got that wrong, it seems.
--Shannon