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Inexpensive 35mm VIEWFINDER cameras with Leica mountS

The Canonet QL17 GIII is a perfect non-changeable lens, metered rangefinder and it's shutter is a quite as the Minolta Autocord "E", non metered TLR.

Deals can be had if you look around carefully.
 
The Canonet QL17 GIII is a perfect non-changeable lens, metered rangefinder and it's shutter is a quite as the Minolta Autocord "E", non metered TLR.

Deals can be had if you look around carefully.

He wants to use lenses using an adapter. Specifically very wide angle lenses.
 
However, 19 and 17mm lenses are not "very" wide on half-frame.
 
He wants to use lenses using an adapter. Specifically very wide angle lenses.

Which is why I mentioned the fixed lens feature of the Canonet, just in case he does no find a m39 camera that he likes.
 
Which is why I mentioned the fixed lens feature of the Canonet, just in case he does no find a m39 camera that he likes.

I have a couple of Canon Canonet QL17 GIII cameras. In fact, I wrote an article about it that was published in Camera Shopper back in the '90s:

www.subclub.org/minman/leanmean.pdf

It's a great camera with a super lens, but it's large and heavy with a fixed lens. I want something light with interchangeable lenses -- and I found it.
 
However, 19 and 17mm lenses are not "very" wide on half-frame.

You don't consider an 84° picture angle "very wide angle"? What half frame camera has the equivalent of a 24mm on a full frame camera??
 
The Canonet QL17 GIII is a perfect non-changeable lens, metered rangefinder and it's shutter is a quite as the Minolta Autocord "E", non metered TLR.

Deals can be had if you look around carefully.

It’s as silent as any central blade shutter.

The Kowa SW would be ideal, if it wasn’t relatively costly.
But time is money.
You might just want to bite the bullet.
 
Some of us don't happen to have a bullet to bite.
 
Post a WTB ad asking for free Leica lenses. The thread will be a smash hit.
 
You don't consider an 84° picture angle "very wide angle"? What half frame camera has the equivalent of a 24mm on a full frame camera??

Is that 84 degrees on 36x24 or on the Chaika frame, which is 17x24?
 
The picture angle of my Tamron 17mm is 104° with a full-frame 35mm camera. On a half-frame it is 84° -- the same as a 24mm on a full-frame 35mm camera. Most people consider that pretty damn wide. Perhaps you don't, but I have never seen a half-frame with a picture angle that wide -- without an image deteriorating front-end adapter of some sort.
 
The picture angle of my Tamron 17mm is 104° with a full-frame 35mm camera. On a half-frame it is 84°

Interesting. Why does it calculate to 63 degrees diagonal for 17x24? (It calculates to 104 degrees diagonal on 36x24)
 
You must be using different parameters. The Pen F has a 25mm lens, like a 35mm in full-frame format. The Pen F has a 20mm lens, like a 28mm in full-frame format.

That's it.

So a 19mm or 17mm lens will have a wider picture angle than a 20mm lens. A 63° picture angle is a 35mm (full-frame) lens and a 25mm half-frame lens.

19mm & 17mm are WAY past that. A 17mm on a half frame is much wider than the Pen-F 20mm (an equivalent 28mm lens on a full-frame camera.) A 28mm full frame is around 94°.
 

Congratulations on your find and good luck with your shooting.
 
Interesting. Why does it calculate to 63 degrees diagonal for 17x24? (It calculates to 104 degrees diagonal on 36x24)
I just did the drawing in CAD software to check it out myself.

A lens with 104 degrees diagonal angle gives roughly 83.18 degrees diagonal angle on 18x24.
A lens with 104 degrees diagonal angle gives roughly 82.05 degrees diagonal angle on 17x24, which is marginally smaller.

One more difference between full frame and half frame is image ratio. 36x24=3:2, whereas 24x18=4:3. I have just discovered it a few days ago, when I was trying to make a darkroom print from half frame negative and so far it's been annoying.
 
Let's put it this way - ignoring the diagonal. If the 17mm lens will take a photo of a your living room wall when you sit on the couch on a regular camera, the same lens will only take a photo of half that wall on a half frame camera from the same seated position. Yes, same height. Only half the width.
 
A lens with 104 degrees diagonal angle gives roughly 83.18 degrees diagonal angle on 18x24.
A lens with 104 degrees diagonal angle gives roughly 82.05 degrees diagonal angle on 17x24, which is marginally smaller.

That's correct -- my 17mm lens is very similar to a 24mm lens on a full-frame.
 
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I'm all set now -- thanks to TWO Ukrainian photo shops. Both of these are easy-to-get, inexpensive LTM 35mm cameras. On the left if a full-frame ZAPA with an 18mm f2.8 Sigma, next to a half-frame Chaika 2M with a Tamron 17mm f3.5.

If you are interested in supporting the photo industry in Ukraine, checkout TERPHOTOSTORE and SOVDEPIA on EBAY. I was surprised at how quickly these two cameras arrived.

 

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If you have some photos from the Chaika with that lens, I'm sure plenty of people would be interested to see.