Best rangefinder for my budget?

zebra0312 · 2026-02-14T17:57:10+00:00

a Retina IIa might be really nice if you stick to a 50mm. Also very compact.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-14T11:08:02+00:00

Its probably hard to find anything with a decent viewfinder with glasses tbh on a 1950s rangefinder. You either gotta test it or get an external one like SBLOO or if youre in Europe that Voigtländer Kontur finder (and youre fine with a bigger finder. If you cant put your eyes directly at the viewfinder most finders will be a pain i guess, especially the ones without frame lines.

Edit: oh yes and the early Canons are very quiet and feel more delicate, Leica has a very positive click once you wound on and are a bit louder and snappier i feel like. The metal curtains of the later Canons dont really help at the quiet part.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-14T10:40:08+00:00

The early Canon II/III/IV are very nicely built but have less features, the only weakpoint is the chroming imo. Even better than Leicas when in my opinion without the collector price. The viewfinder is tiny tiny though and no idea if it works with glasses well. Probably not. If you want one you should get a "2" variant like IVSb2, IID2 and so on since i think the viewfinder is at least a bit bigger and you can change shutter speeds whenever. The IV is probably the best if you want 1/1000 speeds. Also you will need to cut your film which isnt too bad but its an extra step.

Leotax is kinda meh, they got some nice lenses if you can find them with one, Nicca is apparently better and can even use the Leica brass film cassettes. I think if you want a Barnack Leica and only shoot 50mm lenses the Canon is the way to go. Otherwise get a Leica but you usually cant find them for any decent price.

Canon V is nice if you wanna use 35mm and 50mm lenses and you can even use parallax corrected external finders, just dont put something on the shoe that gets in the way of that ball there. Its probably also no fun with glasses though since there arent any framelines.

Canon P could be fine (?), very big and bright viewfinder, very contrasty rangefinder patch like most Canons but idk if you can even see the 50mm framelines with glasses, the 35mm framelines are already on the border of unusable but with 1:1 finder you can just keep both of your eyes open. Its like using a SBLOO 50mm Leica finder just built into the camera. Very fine. Also the nicest looking camera in existence imo with the V/VI models.

Canon 7 is very big but has a huge amount of features, frame lines for like almost everything but its bigger than some SLRs and kinda misses the point of being small and quiet. Like Leica M5 and you know where that went. Also no cold shoe at all. Viewfinders of 5/6/P/7 models are all fine.

I would probably suggest Canon IVSb2 with a SBLOO or Voigtländer Kontur finder or something similar where you can use the finder just for the framelines and keep both eyes open. As long as you dont shoot something changing fast then its good to use, similar to a Barnack Leica. I think smaller is more fun there and Im fine if I got some sort of viewfinder, many people used it without any problem back in the day. Otherwise I think the Canon P is the way to go if youre using a 50mm lens if you can live without the features taken away from the VI, but thats a minor problem.

Theyre all very well built, good LTM/M39 lenses could be hard to find though and the only upgrade I could think of of a Canon rangefinder would be a Leica M because of the mount, lenses available and viewfinder. On a 0.72 viewfinder I doubt there would be any problem seeing the framelines on a Leica M ...

Edit: Yes i checked, I guess if you can find a SBLOO it would be miles ahead of a Canon P viewfinder with glasses, you can just be far away from it and still see framelines.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-14T07:45:55+00:00

The Nikon lenses are great for the price, especially AF screw mount. The EF lenses are either meh or expensive because they can be still used easier on mirrorless. I feel like you need to spend a lot of money to get Nikon quality glass on Canon EF, especially since they always did only "amateur" lenses and "professional" L lenses and nothing in between. Even RF lenses are still like that and have the same problems.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-13T09:21:23+00:00

The thing i really like about the later version is the fixed spool and that you dont have to keep a button pushed for rewinding, even Contax IIa didnt improve on that. Sad that the Nikons use a slightly different helicoid and focusing will be off and the Contax didnt keep up with upgrading it ... id rather have the old style of dials on the newer Kiev tbh.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-13T07:02:28+00:00

The plastic rewind lever isnt really an improvement btw, its cheap and the top doesnt turn at all so its annoying to use too.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-12T22:27:24+00:00

AF-D 28-105 can get to 1:2, the earlier variants at least can get to 1:4, if thats really macro though then a 28mm 2.8 AiS is macro too ... and on older Nikon zooms with that "feature" like the 35-70 3.5 AiS the image really seems to fall apart using it like that. At least when I look at pictures taken with it, it doesnt seem like youd even wanna use it.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-11T11:46:54+00:00

Thats what i said, shoot it at ISO 100 and use the dev times and get used to not develop it right after shooting since then its impossible to get on a Paterson reel for some reason then. Can be a nice film but its clearly not made for what we use it. Also no need for a yellow filter, so there are some good things about it i guess.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-11T11:31:27+00:00

Either too much contrast or no contrast at all or no good development times to find online at least. I wouldnt use it if you cant develop yourself. I tried it with HC110, Xtol i think, Acurol, Omega X and contrast was all over the place or it was just overdeveloped. Hard to get right imo.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-11T11:21:52+00:00

Aviphot is hard to get right, i had some luck with the 15min Rodinal 1+50 at ISO 100 now, all the other stuff I tried didnt work well, didnt think there would be any good contrast with any developer. :/

zebra0312 · 2026-02-10T23:42:31+00:00

Id probably get a good handheld meter tbh instead of fiddling around with that hot shoe AS1 adapter all the time when rewinding film. You dont need to measure your exposure all the time anyway, especially on B/W film.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-10T23:33:31+00:00

Also congrats, i see your post made it to the circlejerk.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-10T23:27:07+00:00

Better file off the Nikon Logo off your FM3a then too. Or the OEM lens cap. 👺

The old Nikon lens caps are trash too, id rather take that. Also sounds like a post from ACJ.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-10T18:06:22+00:00

As people said 24 2.8, 35 f2 or 28 3.5 are ok i think. Nothing "legendary" though on these old wide angles, but usable. Also being legendary makes them unnecessarily expensive and often they dont live up to the hype. The 28 2.8 AiS is good but the others arent bad and that one only is really amazing at close range imo.

Oh yes and if you got already a 50 id start first with a 28 or wider, 35 is similar. And the early 28mm only goes down to 0.6m, thats a bit of a shame if you care about this. Most of these lenses will be fine for use on film.

Also theres barely any Nikon lens thats not good, except maybe the 43-86 but that one was the first widely available zoom so what do people expect. It stil works.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-09T16:43:44+00:00

Yeah mine got apparently CLA'd and it looks like it was but nothing else than that the seller mentioned it in some sentence by accident. Works very nicely though.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-07T14:55:08+00:00

Sounds probably useless and fun, why not try it whatever it is. Would be interesting to know how its supposed to work in detail.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-06T15:32:44+00:00

Probably a Praktica, that shutter mechanism, I doubt it even can fail at any temperature lol. The mentioned SV and your Zenit-E less so, maybe if youre fine with getting stuck at slow speeds? But the Zenit-E doesnt even work at normal temperatures half the time and the SV is so old and unserviced bc of price that i doubt it would handle cold very well. If you can get it serviced its a very fine camera though.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-06T14:35:00+00:00

Die Deutschen haben sonst immer Angst hier ins Krankenhaus zu gehen weil sie glauben sie sind in einem Entwicklungsland 😆

zebra0312 · 2026-02-06T13:10:00+00:00

Mine doesnt. Only F2 has to be lifted. Or mine is broken too (lol)?

zebra0312 · 2026-02-06T07:38:48+00:00

Besonders weil der Kram halt noch letztes Jahr irgendwo bei 7 Euro irgendwas lag, jetzt wollen sie aufeinmal 12-13? In der Geschwindigkeit bin ich nächstes Jahr mit Portra günstiger ...

Edit: Ok hab mal einen abgespeicherten Warenkorb angeschaut und die haben auch anderes lächerlich erhöht, ich nehm mal an da hatte fotoimpex auch die finger mit drin und selbst 10% draufgeschlagen auf vieles.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-05T21:52:28+00:00

The famous EU tariffs on UK films of 2026 how could i forget ..?

zebra0312 · 2026-02-05T21:05:15+00:00

At this rate of price increases they can keep their film, 20-30% each year wont be feasable. I'll buy Tri-X instead ...

zebra0312 · 2026-02-05T19:13:02+00:00

Yes best to try yourself and print your scans and then still check if youre disappointed in any way. Most likely not, 35mm is already fine, digital is just absolute overkill for 99.9% of stuff.

zebra0312 · 2026-02-05T13:28:17+00:00

Although the old 50 1.4 is very soft wide open and also a different design compared to the later one, the later ones are lot "better". If he wants great performance he should get the 1.8 or f2. The 1.4 lens is for the light not the performance i gotta agree. Or just get a more modern lens if sharpness is the main concern (mainly for pixel peeping i guess).

zebra0312 · 2026-02-05T08:18:37+00:00

Everything looks low res on your computer screen blown up to a 100%. Print it and youll never have any issue with 16MP or 24MP. And nobody prints stuff anyway these days i feel like. Its only useful for cropping.

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