I need to find my Yashica…

Yes please, BTW, was that the one with the Campagnolo lens?
Best, Ben

Are they valuable? Wait, there is a Yashica camera isn’t there? It had a German lens, I think, but could be wrong there.

At one time Yashica and Zeiss had a semi colaberation with one another.....Your camera if it had a Zeiss lens was most likely a Yashica FX-3 and FX-3 Super 2000.

Best, Ben

[Switching on annoying guy on internet mode] Yashica relaunched the defunct Zeiss Contax camera brand in partnership with Zeiss, Germany, including two SLR lines comprising Yashica and Contax bodies, Yashinon and Zeiss lenses. Contax SLR lenses were built by Zeiss in Germany and Japan, the Yashica lenses all in Japan—all bodies and accessories were built in Japan. All were interchangeable and the brands went forward for many years, beginning in the '70s.

The brand was acquired by Kyocera Corporation who kept things going for awhile before dropping the entire photo business in the early days of digital imagery. Some of us are still miffed.


Leica IIIc, Contax III rangefinder cameras

Kyocera-Contax G2 film rangefinder, Olympus Pen F digital MILC

Zeiss Contax/Yashica mount 85/1.4 film lens adapted to modern digital MILC camera. Still good glass, 50 years on.

Have lots of film gear some going back to the 1920s. On the plus side, they take up less room than bikes.

/annoying guy on internet mode

No auto lens. More silver.

What's a good, repairable, first rangefinder? (I assume something Japanese, but what do I know?)

--Shannon

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

Don't mean to put you off all rangefinders, it's interchangeable lens systems that are complex and often need adjustment. Fixed-lens are simpler and can be more robust. There are lots, given the SLR didn't shove them aside until the '60s.

slightly off topic....but for 4x5 affcionados...... my wife grew up in carmel, ca and once got a cease and desist order from Ansel Adams to quit bouncing in his trees

on the positive side her best friend is Edward Weston's daughter and my wife got weston prints for her 16th and 21st birthdays

Back in the days of film I have always had good luck buying used rangefinder cameras. I only bought Japanese brands and came to like Minolta, Yashika and Cannon. I spent a lot of time with SLR's but sometimes I preferred rangefinders for their lighter weight, ruggedness and simplicity. These were especially good for backpacking and camping. With rangefinders, they are pretty well sealed until changing film.

Rangefinders are not as sophisticated as SLR's. For instance the metering is either average across the scene or just a photo cell placed on the front of the camera. Often the lenses were not going to be as good as SLR lenses because rangefinders were made more as a consumer level camera and price was important. I also came to appreciate rangefinders when taking pictures of people. When you point a big SLR in their face they can get self consensus. A rangefinder is not as intimidating. People tend to act more naturally.

That is just my opinions. I have a soft spot for Film photography and darkroom processing (the other half of making pictures). Despite that statement and a wild thought of getting some Tri-X film and shooting some rolls I have not done any film photography. I tossed my film tanks, contact printer, bath trays and even my thermometer. It was sad, but I was done with processing film. Nowadays. it is all digital with lessons learned from the days of film.

By the way is there any free software that lets me "Dodge and burn" area within the print? I often used this technique to bring back the sky in a landscape. Or is the digital sensors not as sensitive as film?

This is Contaflex is from the 1950's. it has a fixed 45mm lens and requires either using a handheld light meter or the old educated guess for setting the exposure. The lens is sharp and with Kodachrome you can see the difference with pictures taken with this lens and the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens SLR lens.

For several years I played around with an old Leica 560 f/6.8 Telyt-R lens. It was long as heck but light and worked surprisingly well. I sort of regret selling it. It was way long but actually easy to handle.

This is it alongside a Canon 400/5.6 for comparison.


Handheld shots using the lens.

What came for me in the post today came for my C & V camera, so double points!



Outer Shell 3-point camera strap in Cow. I have no idea if I'm going to like this on the bike or not... I think I've got it installed correctly, but the only instructions are a video. Which is beautifully shot, but has no narration or explanation, and is basically useless. I know it won't drop my camera on the ground, but I'm going to have to use it for a bit to see if I've got it set up roght, and then, if I do, if I like the thing. It's already kicked the tuchus of the thin black nylon one it came with, so that's a win.

--Shannon

Nothing to complicated with the old rangefinder cameras, they are a little slower to operate and take some time to focus etc. especially if one is used to do everything cameras etc. If you have shot analogue cameras in the past not much to overcome.

Many camera manufactures have made them, I would categorize them into a few different camps.....the really old school one that had interchangeable lenses and those that hade fixed lenses on them.....the former IMO are the most like the "classic" Leicas that many think of when thinking "rangefinder" camera.

A lot of folks call the older Canon Rangefinder cameras the "poor" mans Leica (their words not mine).....folks seem to prefer the Canon model "P" over any of it predecessors/successors due to it's simplicity and lack of an exposure meter etc. Canon 'P"'s can be found on any number of sites selling used camera gear, they range from 175.00 to 300 sometimes with a lens. Personally, I shoot with the Canon 7, dead meter and all and find it quite capable of making nice images.

If one wants a meter the Canon 7 series is the way to go. The 7 to some appears cluttered (I shoot with it and it's not an issue for me) and opt for the 7s or 7z. Canon 7's can be found at very reasonable prices 75 to 180 higer end with lens, while the 7z's can go for well over 300.

The nice thing about Canon is that they also share the same lens mount as the Leica (M39) and the lens range is quite extensive.

Here are a few pics from the net.....

Canon P in black....lots of money for this one!

Canon 7....not as much as the P but still over a "grand".....that's why mines "chrome"

Anyway I hope this helps.

Best, Ben

Yes, I like Canon and have owned and shot other manufactures as well.

Steady Hand!!!!!!!! Film speed and shutter speed?
Best, Ben

Who knows, that was years ago. I'd be betting it was at least 1/1000th if not faster and the ISO would have been pushed to give me the shutter speed needed. As I remember, the last shot was at a local bird refuge and shot using my vehicle as a blind. So the lens was steadied by a beanbag I use over the window frame of the vehicle. So shutter speed could have been lower than the others as I would just need to ensure it was at around 1/500th to ensure no motion blur from the bird moving.

I moved from this lens to an old Nikon 800/5.6 ED lens that at first I used on a Nikon DSLR and then I adapted to work on EOS with my other lens. That was a heavy beast that I avoided handholding whenever I could. I remember working a bear once with it when I had no tripod. I had to steady it against trees and other brush to even try and get a decent shot.





At the other end of the spectrum is my old bellows setup that seen a lot of use with flower macro shots and the like. I need to break that back out and do some more work with it. Such a technical piece of kit to use as at high magnification even your own breath could move the subject and mess up the shot.



Another victim of my bad knees. Hard to use this in a lot of situations when you have problems getting down onto the ground. And back up, LOL!

For anyone interested in photography, with the means to get to NYC, GO SEE THE DIANE ARBUS SHOW at the Park Avenue Armory. More than 400 prints in an awesome space, with an amazing presentation. We went to NYC yesterday for our wedding anniversary and the first stop was the Arbus exhibit. (Then we kind of did as we did on our wedding day: eat too much food, go to Coney Island, ride the Wonder Wheel, catch the last train out of the city and get home after 4am).
Anyway, Arbus photo exhibit!
Phil

Here's another one my father left me. Rollei SL66. The shutter is a little slow so I need to find somewhere to send it for a good cleaning. There's a couple lenses to go with it, and some other accessories.

And, after its first real ride, I can declare the Outer Shell camera strap to be a win. 20 miles, 1500 feet of climbing in the Oakland hills, with the SRT Super that started this thread snugged against the small of my back, on the right side. (Crossdraw strap coming up from under left arm to leftside breastbone.) The Minolta is a significant chunk o' metal... quite a bit heavier than I remember my X-700 as being. In the whole ride, the rig didn't move: bounce, slide, rotate, slip down... none of it. The only way I could tell I'd been wearing it was some soreness in my shoulder/neck junction... which is wonky anyway, and has been for 2+ decades, plus the new bar position and this being the hardest road ride I've done in years... not surprising that my shoulder's a little mad at me.

As to the photographing itself, it was fun. Mid-day, and sunny, so I had to find interesting shadows and other not-boring ways to take pictures of what was, after all, a very, very pretty East Bay ride. Burned up the last 20-ish frames of the Tri-X, and I hadn't brought more. Fortunately, the last few shots corresponded to the like 2nd-to-last place I wanted to take pictures, so it almost worked out. (Not to mention, I'd never changed film in this camera before, and not in any camera since 2014. Having my 1st time be in the field ain't a great idea anyway.)

Almost all of my old manual-SLR muscle memory is long-since forgotten, so there was a bit of a comedic aspect to the whole thing. I didn't quite manage to take a macro image of the backside of my lens cap, but there were multiple no-winds, several lens-cap-still-ons that fell short of me snapping the picture, including one that was saved only because I'd also forgotten to crank the advance. Add in the totally-unfamiliar strap system, and there was much fumbling, and some cursing.

Since I'm burning a roll each of Tri-X, HP5+, and FP4+, I decided to swap in the HP5. Tri-X is the only black & white film I've ever shot, and not much of that, so I decided that sticking with another roll of 400 would maybe flatten the (re-)learning curve a bit. We'll see.

So, tl;dr, bottom line, dead-and-buried lede:

The Outer Shell camera strap is a great product made by great people, and if you want something that does what it does, you should buy this one from them, 'cuz it's rad and they're rad.

--Shannon

Let me add some C & V camera literature:

We had one in the studio for lighting tests, back when the polaroid film packs were still relatively cheap for the B&W version.
That's a good piece of glass on that camera too- nice and sharp after f5.6 and smaller.
Some of the so-called test shots even made a little money with certain models.

-D.S.

Polaroid has many interesting interesting stories, which also includes suing Kodak and winning, and developing instant movies, which destroyed them.
The SX-70 is their biggest victory.
A folding, single lens reflex camera.
"Instant" Polaroid film in a pack which included the battery for operating the camera and moving the film.
Through the lens metering, which included the flash.
This is a later model with the ultrasonic auto-focus, which turned up in many other uses.



And using the same film pack:
Polaroid Macro 5
Crazy technical plastic was originally for medical and police ultra macro closeups.
Ah, what stories it could tell.



I picked it out of the FREE box at a garage sale.