After seeing your link I looked up video reviews and this one seems fair-minded to me. It does look like a nice camera to use, and small too.Thumbsup for Ikontas. I got a Super Ikontas 530/16 and they are wonderful to use. Tessar lens are great.
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Super_Ikonta_530/16
Fuji made 645 RF's so petite that the whole folder vs non-folder question is moot, except that non-folding means one less thing to get damaged or out of alignment. I prefer their 6X9 RF's instead, but regardless, any later design Fuji will have an exceptionally good lens. No sense bringing Hassle-bads or other MF SLR's into the mix - oranges versus apples, with largely different ideal applications.
Whoa! Just looked a Super Ikontas prices on the bay and they are soo high! Whoa.
Good thing I'm have enough of them to be happy but weird they are so expensive ($200-600)
Hi Sirius. For a long time I had my own actual orchards, with all kinds of fruit trees. That was in the mountains, the Sierras, overlooking the flat plain of the Central Valley below, where we understood the distinction between vertical and horizontal. And in keeping with that theme, my own MF apples n oranges camera mix has no place in it for anything square, which can't make up its mind.
If square is anything it wants to be, how come it's almost never presented as a diamond shape instead? Is there some problem with Hassies relative to the magnetic pole? And when it comes to picture framing, there's almost nothing more boring than equal dimension borders on each side .... and any picture frame shop that lazy - which includes quite a few these days - should have its matcutter operator tarred and feathered. That would lend a new meaning to the concept of the Greek "Golden Mean" - mean and angry. I'd be in that mob.
Incidentally, the once guru of museum quality picture framing, Paul Frederick, actually taught his students to use the golden mean ratio as the differential between top and bottom mat margins. But since basic gravity causes the backing and mat to settle a little more toward the bottom rabbet of the frame (allowance has to be made for expansion and contraction), that kinda fools around with the formula. A simple 2:3 ratio is easier. I simply do it by eye - my composition, my rules! But equal margins seem to have caught on especially with modern computerized matcutters, that is, with how faster and easier rote workflow equates to the operators themselves being proportionately too lazy to punch a couple more buttons to offset the dimensions. Can people even think or choose for themselves anymore?
No, I wouldn't do that with any image presented in the diamond or the round; but I have never ever seen a Hassie advertised as having a diamond format back either. Maybe Hassies just don't appeal to creative people.
Agree - Mamiya has a bit better viewfinder, too.I have both a Super Ikonta B (532/16 -- very early post-War with uncoated 80/2.8 Tessar) and a Mamiya 6 folder with Zuiko 75/3.5 (not the Automat with auto film counter, but one of the models with captive format masks to shoot 6x6 and 6x4.5 in the same camera) Of the two, the Mamiya is the better camera, IMO.
Agree - Mamiya has a bit better viewfinder, too.
I have about 20 different folders.
I have found that for walking around taking snap-shots, the squares have it.
My preferred camera is a super Ikonta iii or iv.
It is very similar to the mamiya 6 in size and style. I do not have a mamiya 6 though. The mamiya has nice thumb focus and effectively unit focusing.. so on paper it would be better than the Ikonta. But they both have a nice combined view finder rangefinder. And the focus bed drops down instead of to one side. This makes it very easy to grip both sides of the camera.
645 cameras are a tiny bit smaller but not by much. And none of them are as nice to use as the above two. Best are the Konica ii/iii/iv. The iv is very expensive though.
Other suggestions...
The isolette iii / speedex special with non coupled rangefinder. -look for a cla'd one. The focus is often locked up.
The non-rangefinder Ikonta or nettar. If you are shooting trees or mountains, not very hard to get the focus right.
Iskra? Never tried one but look very nice.
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