Machineboy

Do you want to become a better photographer, shoot low light pictures and still have beer money left? Get yourself a rangefinder!

Zeiss Ikon Nettar, 1930’s (Note: This is not a rangefinder)

It started with an old folding bellows camera that used to belong to my grandfather. It was a really cool looking camera, a Zeiss Ikon Nettar from the early 1930’s. When I got it, I did some research and found that it uses 120 film that is still available. I also bumped into some other websites and forums, and some guys were making an offbeat comment about this cheap camera from the 70’s that even rivalled the Canon 5D when it came to sharpness. Hmm…

Olympus Trip 35, early 80’s (Note: This is not a rangefinder)

Now, I have a Canon 40D which is sort of a machinegun version of a camera. It’s cool, it’s capable of taking great pictures and I have lenses for most occations. It’s not something you put in your pockets though. The camera these guys were talking about was the Olympus Trip 35, a small 35mm film camera with a light meter that runs on solar power. Environmentally friendly, baby! So I trawled the big auction site – you know – ebay, and found one for like $2. It turned up a week later, smelling like a british basement, but fully working. I shot a roll of iso400 colour film and most of the photos came out nicely.

Olympus Trip 35, fujifilm superia 400

The Trip was nice, but it is a zone focus camera. It’s hard to estimate distances, and the max. aperture of 2.8 (which is still pretty good for a compact) was a bit limiting. So I started looking for a faster camera, and one with a rangefinder. It had to be cheap, and it had to be good. Try that with a digital camera.

I ended up getting a Yashica electro 35 GSN. It was a bit more expensive than the Trip (but still lunch money-cheap), but the specs were impressive:
- 40 mm f1.7 (making it my fastest lens)
- Aperture priority AE
- 30sec – 1/500 shutter
- Rangefinder with parallax correction (the viewfinder frame moves as you focus)
- Uses modern batteries with the aid of some toilet roll cardboard and some aluminium foil
- Totally cool looking

Yashica electro 35 GSN, early 1970’s

The downside was that it didn’t work. Yep, the pictures on ebay showed the battery light lighting up, but it just didn’t wanna play. After a week of web crawling, uncovering the innards of the camera, asking for help, I finally found the loose wire, soldered it into place and presto – it worked! It worked really, really well and took some beautiful pictures.

Yashica electro 35 GSN, fujifilm superia 200

I now have a nice collection of rangefinders, from the “poor man’s Leica”-Canonet GIII Ql17 to the supertiny Olympus XA via an old, beat up Konica C35 and even a Russian FED5 which scares me.

FED-5, Canon Canonet QL17 GIII, Olympus XA, Konica C35

My Canon 40D is nowhere near retirement, and it’s not gathering dust in some closet. But today I do shoot both film and digital, and would highly recommend a rangefinder to anyone who likes photography. First, it’s a cheap way to get some really excellent, fast-lensed equipment. They kick any digital compact’s ass when it comes to image quality over iso400. They are usually very quiet compared to the mirror slap of a SLR and most can be carried in pockets. Focusing in dim light is easy when you get the hang of rangefinders. The leaf shutters reduce camera shake, and you spend more time looking at the world than at a tiny LCD. You learn to trust your skills and use your feet. I like the fact that when I press the shutter, that moment in time will be frozen on a negative and printed on nice, glossy paper. No more work, just that little click with my right index finger (and walking back and forth to the store to get the film developed). I like retouching and adjusting photos, but I like taking photos more. With an analog camera you do mostly the latter.

Now I just have to wait for some nice sunlight outside so I can take my grandfather’s camera for a spin!



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All photos and material is copyright © 2008 Sven Mattis Folkestad. Do not use without permission.