A totally unscientific test of four well-respected rangefinders from the 70’s
Looking for a great, all-round camera that fits in your pocket and takes better pictures than any digital compact? I’ve been testing some of the most respected rangefinder cameras from the 70’s:
Canon Canonet QL17 III
Konica C35
Olympus 35RC
Olympus XA
All these are well constructed, solid cameras. All are made of metal, except the XA which is made of compact plastic with a great heft to it. They all have quite similar specs, but the Canon being the most advanced and most feature-packed with a f1.7 lens and parallax-corrected viewfinder. A quick feature summary:
Canon Canonet QL17 III
- 40 mm f1.7
- Shutter priority AE
- Bright, parallax-corrected viewfinder with f-stop only
- Full manual control
- Quick loading: Film is easy to load
- Shutter speed: B + 1/4-1/500
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries
Olympus RC35
- 42mm f2.8
- Bright viewfinder with both f-stop and shutter speed
- Shutter priority AE
- Full manual control
- Shutter speeds B + 1/15-1/500
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries
Konica C35
- 38 mm f2.8
- Auto Exposure, no manual control (battery dependant)
- Medium sized viewfinder with both shutter speed and f-stop (My viewfinder should be cleaned, camera quite dirty!)
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries
Olympus XA
- 35mm f2.8
- medium/small crisp viewfinder with shutter speeds
- Aperture priority AE
- Electronic shutter, battery dependant
- Uses modern batteries
The test
My testing was done with cheap Fuji Superia colour film, just shooting and using the cameras as an everyday point-and-shoot. At the end I got the film back and had a look at the photos, and my findings are both based on end results and actual use.
Here is one photo from each camera, quickly scanned on my Canon 8800F and resized to 600px width. (Note: These photos were selected not because they nescessarily were the best photos from the roll, but what I wanted and didn’t want to post on my blog. As such they don’t really say much about quality at all, but it’s nice to see what they might produce as everyday results).
The Canonet QL16 G-III lens is sharp and renders the background nicely out of focus. The bokeh is a bit edgy, look at the helmet highlights. The XA rendered it a lot smoother, but the image itself was much less sharp. The Canonet took good, consistent photos and has a great lens. Sharp and at f1.7, it’s usually fast enough to use indoors.
The Olympus has a great lens and good light measuring. This picture has very challenging lighting, but is still well exposed. At f2.8 it’s usally too slow for indoor use at ISO400. Overall the RC35 took great pictures with great sharpness.
The Konica C35’s lens is good and with a nice field of view at 38mm. The photos were pretty sharp and contrasty, and I wish I took more outdoor shots with it. It has an annoying limit that it won’t take the picture if there isn’t enough light, but when there is it’s the easiest camera to use.
The Olympus XA shots came out well, especially outdoor photos. It has a bit of a fiddly focus lever, but takes good photos and is one of the smallest 35mm cameras ever.
Conclusion
Hmm. All four cameras took some great pictures, with the Olympus 35RC and the Canonet impressing me the most. The XA and the C35 also did really well and I think in everyday use all four cameras take very similar photos. Some shots came out wrongly exposed and out-of-focus on all cameras. Rangefinder focusing can be hard when you shoot at wide apertures. It’s really a toss-up for me which camera is the best. I’d probably choose the Canonet for travelling, but the XA and RC35 are also nice pocket cams. The beat-up Konica C35 is great as a backup or for snapshots. If I was forced to conclude any further, I’d rate them like this:
Best feature-wise:
Canonet QL17 G-III. Fast lens, full manual control, great viewfinder, good sharpness. Fiddly to use sometimes with its small controls, but the results are worth it. Expensive compared to the other cameras.
Easiest camera in use:
Konica C35. This is a point and shoot, full auto. Locks in poor light, otherwise you just focus and pull the trigger. This is probably the cheapest camera as well!
Most consistent (took the most in-focus, well exposed photos):
Olympus 35RC. It’s a great camera with a nice lens. It’s not so cool for indoor shots with the f2.8 lens and 1/15 as slowest speed. For outdoor shots it rocks! If you like Aperture priority the XA gets very similar results in a smaller (uglier) package.