Most beautiful rangefinder?

[The Barbarian]

I've always loved the classic rangefinders. What do you think is the most beautiful of the 35mm rangefinders?

My nominee...


The Werra was made by Karl Zeiss Jena, and is a remarkably clean and "modern" looking camera. The lens hood reverses to cover the entire lens, protecting it. The rewind lever and exposure counter are on the bottom. You turn a ring around the lens mount to advance the film and cock the shutter.

A remarkable design. The meter on mine still works, although not very accurately.

 

[Derrel]

Soooooo many beautiful rangefinders have been made! It's very hard to choose the "most beautiful"...in the 35mm film size, I'd say I like most the appearance of the Nikon SP, shown here, D3S_6868-600.jpg

and also the entire Leica III series!!! IIIf, IIIg, IIIc--all sexy as heck! To me, the older, thread mount Leicas look prettier than the M3 and newer variants. I also have a soft spot for the Contax II series cameras. And the brand-new Zeiss-Ikon is pretty sexy too!

For people who have no idea what is being discussed here, THIS page has some GREAT LINKS to classic rangefinders!!! Classic Camera Profiles

 

[MK3Brent]

I'm partial to my Petri's.
But, I'll repost them here.

 

[compur]

Not necessarily the most beautiful, but a looker IMO:

 

[camperbc]

My vote goes to my two favorite Soviet rangefinders; the FED 2 and Zorki-4. They are quite beautiful, in my opinion, and are capable of stunning photographs with their Industar 26 and 61 lenses. And they don't cost a fortune either; I paid less than $100 for each of these absolutely mint beauties.

Glen
Focus On Newfoundland: about my photography:

FED 2 (D6)

Zorki-4

 

[SamSpade1941]

Soooooo many beautiful rangefinders have been made! It's very hard to choose the "most beautiful"...in the 35mm film size, I'd say I like most the appearance of the Nikon SP, shown here, D3S_6868-600.jpg

and also the entire Leica III series!!! IIIf, IIIg, IIIc--all sexy as heck! To me, the older, thread mount Leicas look prettier than the M3 and newer variants. I also have a soft spot for the Contax II series cameras. And the brand-new Zeiss-Ikon is pretty sexy too!

For people who have no idea what is being discussed here, THIS page has some GREAT LINKS to classic rangefinders!!! Classic Camera Profiles

Derrel has it right The SP was the sleekest rangefinder ever made and way ahead of its time. So far ahead of its time in fact that Leica did not catch up with it till the late 80's and early 90's. In fact Nikon had a version of the SP made they never released for sale with TTL metering. Look how long it took Leica to do that. I keep hoping and praying one of these days I am going with find a Nikon SP black body with full compliment of lenses at a yard sale or estate sale for $10 .....

 

[Sw1tchFX]

If I bought a Leica, it'd probably be a chrome M4:

 

[Compaq]

I'm pretty partial to the wonderful Olympus 35SP, black version. It's simple in design, yet very advanced for its age. First rangefinder with both matrix and spot meter. I think it's hot. I love the viewfinder and the metering system! The lens has a "rounded appearance" that makes for a nice nose. Also, maybe, the classical, antique smell is clouding my judgement. Shooting smells soooo DELISH!



Produkt_1 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


Produkt_3 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


Produkt_2 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

 

[gsgary]

If I bought a Leica, it'd probably be a chrome M4:

No my black M4 is much nicer (i must take a photo of it), but i still love my Zorki

 

[Robin Usagani]

This one is pretty good.

 

[Compaq]

Neat. Does it automatically correct for parallax?

 

[sovietdoc]

Buying these cameras nowadays is more useless than buying classic cars.

While there are two things classic cars offer that modern dont - body style and sound

these old cameras offer nothing that can't offered by modern DSLRs. In some cases, pictures taken with these can look quite good, but overall any modern DSLR will absolutely destroy any of these old film cameras with manual focus lenses.

You could argue that the looks are no longer the same because the modern dslrs are big and bulky, but leica still has the same body style as old cameras did, and those EVIL cameras of new are trying to mimic the more compact look of those old cameras.

But then again, I never understood people who collected things they couldn't use. Seems like just a waste of space collecting dust.

Don't hate, just my opinion. Although out of the cameras presented in this thread, those Russian cameras look the best for my taste, I sure wouldn't mind modern dslr's lookin' like that for less than Leica's prices.

 

[Derrel]

Here's one of the "new" Japanese rangefinders that helped start the "rangefinder renaissance" that Mr. Gandy talks about so much on his cameraquest dot com pages--the Bessa-R, the one from 1999. I bought this one back when it was the hot new thing, and have kept it somewhat carefully. This camera uses LTM or Leica Thread Mount lenses AKA "Leica screw mount" lenses. I have it shown here with the first-ever 35mm aspherical lens made in Leica screw mount, the Voigtlander (Cosina-designed and made) 35mm f/1.7 Ultron Aspherical. It's a pretty decent lens too. This particular Bessa model is the camera that launched quite a few "new" rangefinder users into the market, since it, and its lenses, were priced sooo affordably compared to Leica M-series stuff. It doesn't have the design panache of a camera from the house of Leitz, but it does have a certain "form follows function" type of very basic, simple design. Nothing fancy...mechanically-timed shutter, speeds B and 1- 1/1000 second, folding angled crank rewind, hinged back, 1/125 X-synch speed, and manually switchable, top-deck mounted finder frameline selector that has three settings:75 on the left, and 50mm on the right, and in the middle, the paired 35/90 bright-line pairing, all with automatic parallax correction. "Understated simplicity and functionality".
Edit: Here are a couple more pics of the Bessa R. This camera does have match-diode light metering.
the Bessa-R

 

[SamSpade1941]

Here's one of the "new" Japanese rangefinders that helped start the "rangefinder renaissance" that Mr. Gandy talks about so much on his cameraquest dot com pages--the Bessa-R, the one from 1999. I bought this one back when it was the hot new thing, and have kept it somewhat carefully. This camera uses LTM or Leica Thread Mount lenses AKA "Leica screw mount" lenses. I have it shown here with the first-ever 35mm aspherical lens made in Leica screw mount, the Voigtlander (Cosina-designed and made) 35mm f/1.7 Ultron Aspherical. It's a pretty decent lens too. This particular Bessa model is the camera that launched quite a few "new" rangefinder users into the market, since it, and its lenses, were priced sooo affordably compared to Leica M-series stuff. It doesn't have the design panache of a camera from the house of Leitz, but it does have a certain "form follows function" type of very basic, simple design. Nothing fancy...mechanically-timed shutter, speeds B and 1- 1/1000 second, folding angled crank rewind, hinged back, 1/125 X-synch speed, and manually switchable, top-deck mounted finder frameline selector that has three settings:75 on the left, and 50mm on the right, and in the middle, the paired 35/90 bright-line pairing, all with automatic parallax correction. "Understated simplicity and functionality".
View attachment 16955
the Bessa-R

I know where there is one of these with two lenses for sale for $450 and I have debated it seriously for the last week. It has a 35mm, a 85mm lens. Derrel you are not the only person I have heard say that these are great cameras.

 

[Angela Spangler]

Those are all awesome. Would love to obtain a couple one day.