What's so great about rangefinders?

DadaKopf

I've been thinking of getting a medium format camera because they're really cheap now and I want to get into MF before digital catches up.

This weekend I messed around with a couple of 35mm rangefinders - a Voigtlander Bessa and a Leica. They seem ideal for travelling, which I may do some time soon.

So I have an old entry level Canon EOS, and would like to improve my photography. I've been thinking lately that waistlevel finders are my thing, I wear glasses and find it hard to compose through my SLR viewfinder (and my Lomo sometimes).

Rangefinders are much lighter than MF cameras, of course, but sometimes, SLR's are sometimes large and clunky, and the new ones not so robust.

So, genii, tell me.

Burago

They're quieter than SLRs because there's no mirror flipping around in there. Obviously they're more compact and less obtrusive, you'll get more natural shots than the guy with the SLR and the big zoom lens.

rob1891

What has attracted you to the bessa, your post isn't so clear on that ... the EOS viewfinder is giving you trouble but perhaps the large bright viewfinders on Bessas etc would be a better option + you need something smaller ... ?

I was looking at a voigtlander bessa r1/r2 for a while ... until I came to my senses. They are a foot in the door of the leica world and the leica world is madness. So the bessa is comparitively affordable, that is not much an achievement when the leica is more or less unaffordable right now and for the rest of my life.

They come without all the features a purist loves to hate, no auto focus, no zoom lenses, no AE(?). I know for creative photography auto focus will probably focus on the wrong thing, AE will bugger up your depth of field, zoom will make you think less about your composition and digital is of course evil . But to spend 400+ euro on a new camera body that is 30 year old technology and is made to work with antique lenses that cost many times more (and new lenses that are still expensive) didn't make sense to me and I had to give up the Bessa dream. Instead I splurged on a Canonet which is nice, small, has a manual mode but no interchangeable lens and cost less than 50euros!

So, blatant abuse of rangefinders out of the way ...

If you are looking for small camera + big viewfinder try and find someone with an olympus om1/2. See what it is like to use as they are known for their viewfinders being much larger than other slrs, eos 30/33 is .70x magnification & 90% coverage, om1 is .94x & 97%. I can't compare those figures to a rangefinder as for instance the bessa r2 has .6x magnification but will have greater than 100% frame coverage. Bessa will be brighter too, but a prime on the OM will be bright enough.

Bessa body will also be a little bit smaller (136 x 81 x 35mm, 425g), but the OMs are very small for SLRs (136 x 83 x 50mm, ~500g) and the lenses are smaller than other SLR systems also, still a bit bigger than the rangefinder pancakes of course. However, difference in price!! OM1/2s are cheap! The trade offs in size & finder are a lot smaller than the difference in price.

but if you have the money ...

Rob

FinoBlad

The waist level finder can be tricky to manage in MF, AFAIK theres only one mirror in them and so its disconcerting at first cos your seeing a mirror image. I use both waist level finder and a prism viewfinder on a Hasselblad 500cm depending on the use. The prism makes it much easier.

I also use a Hasselblad Xpan II which is a 35mm rangefinder camera with a unique panoramic format 24x65mm

See here for more info.
http://www.xpan.com
http://www.hasselblad.se