I've got a Franka Solida IIIe and it's an amazing little folder...
I've got a Franka Solida IIIe and it's an amazing little folder. The rangefinder isn't coupled but it is very accurate and easy to use. I have a Super Baldax with a coupled RF but I don't like it as much.
These are with the "lesser" f/2.9 Radionar too.
Wow that's terrific! Is it a unit-focuser or a front-cell-focusing lens?
A Bessa I with Color-Skopar [...] will give any TLR a run for its money.
The problem with the Rolleis and Hasselblads and all the rest, is that they are "look down into" cameras. And in the case of the Rolleicords, they are particularly dark, especially when the hot bright sun is overhead. You can't see ZILCH. Try that when taking people pictures especially. You look up to see if everybody has their eyes open, then you look down, only to discover you have to re-position. So you look up again, then down. At one point you decide to just go ahead and shoot. And hope. So now you have a square negative. But all the paper sizes are rectangular. So you crop. Now you've got a 645 negative, at best. Not a fun camera at all. Not to mention that the Germans saw fit to lock the f/stop dial and shutter speed together. so that is fiddly, slow, and annoying. Did I mention how dadgum dark it is looking down into that thing?
The problem with the Rolleis and Hasselblads and all the rest, is that they are "look down into" cameras. And in the case of the Rolleicords, they are particularly dark, especially when the hot bright sun is overhead. You can't see ZILCH. Try that when taking people pictures especially. You look up to see if everybody has their eyes open, then you look down, only to discover you have to re-position. So you look up again, then down. At one point you decide to just go ahead and shoot. And hope. So now you have a square negative. But all the paper sizes are rectangular. So you crop. Now you've got a 645 negative, at best. Not a fun camera at all. Not to mention that the Germans saw fit to lock the f/stop dial and shutter speed together. so that is fiddly, slow, and annoying. Did I mention how dadgum dark it is looking down into that thing?
As you change the position of the front cell, the focus changes but so does the amount of abberations that can be corrected. So it may end up well corrected at infinity, but be rather uncorrected close up. I've actually heard that some folders were optimized for "family photos" so were designed to be sharpest at 10 ft, so infinity landscapes end up being their weakest point. That is total hearsay though.
I'd be interested in learning if unit focusing affects the correction more for tessar or triplet style lenses. For some reason it seems that on folders, the tessars are only a little bit better than the triplets, while on other cameras they blow triplets out of the water. Perhaps front-cell focusing has to do with this.
my 1954 MF folder has a 80mm f/2.8 Schneider Kreuznach lens, which produces excellent image quality, although it's a bit toufgh to focus correctly; in my setup ,the lightest way to go MF.Right now my lightest and most compact medium format camera is a Rolleicord. It's around a pound and a half and while small by medium format standards, it is not necessarily svelte. Enter stage left, the medium format folder. The promise is a medium format camera that can be fit into a jeans pocket. But for me, to make it worth the hassle of carrying a medium format camera, the image quality must be good. It must surpass not only my Rolleicord but also my autofocus Nikon 35mm setup (in other words, the best 35mm has to offer).
So are there any cameras out there that can meet my requirements? It should be lighter than 850 grams, fit into a pocket and match or surpass the image quality of a Rolleicord. Bonus points if it has a rangefinder. Is it possible?
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