I have more little '50's 35's than most might... Among my Olympus cameras alone, I have: My Olympus 35s of that era are: 1) a beautiful little Oly Wide-E. with a G. Zuiko-W F.C. 1:3.5 f=3.5 cm. lens. Followed by: 2) and 3) a couple of 35 SPs, with the phenomonal G-Zuiko 1:1.7 f=42mm lens, And, 4) a quiet Oly 35-S with a E. Zuiko 1:2.8 f=4.5 cm. lens. Talk about a sharp lens in a rangefinder! Beautiful color, good contrast and overall, a lovely lens.
I have a number of others, perhaps some 10 more oddball 35s, but I normally use some of these! Some are rangefinders, some SLRs, some with simple viewfinders only. But.... all beautiful! Love all those 50-year-old cameras... So well made... keith whaley Andre Langevin wrote: > > >A lot of "street photographers" seem to work this way. > >There were a lot of rangefinder 35mm cameras made with > >iris shutters and 35mm focal length that are small and > >very quiet. I own an Olympus XA that would fit this > >bill. Has markings for hyperfocal settings, and can't > >be heard at all unless the area is dead silent to > >begin with. > > Apart from the XA, the manual focus fixed-lens rangefinders with the > convenient 35mm focal lenght were not many: the Yashica Electro-35 CC > with a 35mm f/1.8 (but works in auto mode only) and Olympus Wide-S > from the late fifties with a stunning 35mm f/2. A lot of good ones > have a slightly longer focal lenght: the Konica Auto-S3 w. a 38mm > f/1.8, the Canon GIII QL 17, the Minolta 7S-II, the Olympus 35 RD all > w. a 40mm f/1.7, the older Minolta AL-S (Minoltina) w. a 40mm f1.8 > and the Olympus SP w. a 42mm f/1.7 which may be the best lens of all > these. > > For those interested, as I have tried a few of these, here are a few > more commentaries: > > The Olmpus RD is a pain to use because of its hard to grip rings, on > the other hand, the Canon GIII could probably be manipulated with > thin gloves. The RD is also usually over $100, like the Konica S3. > > The Minoltina is a small mechanical beauty (THE camera that started > in 1964 the down-sizing of cameras). I have yet to test its optical > quality. Cheapest of the lot on eBay, from $5 "don't know if it > works" to $40 "everything works". Forget about the selenium meter, > usually dead by the way. I would not even use the CDS meters on any > of these cameras for slides; it's better to have your speeds checked > by a technician and use the f/16 rule when sunny and a handheld meter > otherwise. > > The easiest to find and probably the best buy is the Canon. Its lens > is very good but has more distorsion than Olympus 35/2 and 42/1.7. > It is also a "GN" lens: a lens that closes to correct aperture > according to focusing distance, as with some others of these cameras. > BUT when using the dedicated Canonlite D flash, the camera knows what > is the real Guide Number of the recharging flash (when charge is not > complete but discharge available, the GN might be much lower). > > For an overview of cheap ($60 to 120$) and sharp cameras suitable for > travel, street and quiet photography: > > http://cameraquest.com/com35s.htm > > Who can live without one of these litle wonders? > > Cheers, > > Andre > --
