My first Rangefinder

peteyj10 · Feb 19, 2014

I apologize ahead of time for the crappy Instagram quality picture.

Anyways, I was visiting my parents in Cleveland for the past week, and I came across a long forgotten box with a bunch of old cameras that belonged to my grandfather. Besides a Minox B with a stuck shutter, there was a beautiful Argus C3 that I decided to snatch and bring back with me. Threw a roll of TX400 into it, did some shooting, and now all I've gotta do is get some D76 before I can find out if it everything is working properly. It's my first time every shooting with a range finder. I know this isn't the best camera out there, but if I like it enough, maybe I'll end up upgrading to a better RF later on.

summicron1 · Feb 19, 2014

if this one gives you good pictures, why upgrade? Darn good lenses on those Argi...

peteyj10 · Feb 20, 2014

summicron1 said:
if this one gives you good pictures, why upgrade? Darn good lenses on those Argi...

Simple. You can never have too many cameras.

Jeff Kubach · Feb 20, 2014

Looks like a great camera.

Jeff

snapguy · Feb 20, 2014

Pretty clean. I have one too that I need to pull out and take some images with.

darkosaric · Feb 20, 2014

peteyj10 said:
Minox B with a stuck shutter, there was a beautiful Argus C3

Argus is a great camera, congrats! Minox B can go on auction site, and then with that money buy some more TriX

benjiboy · Feb 20, 2014

peteyj10 said:
Simple. You can never have too many cameras.

Until they take you to a rubber room on the funny farm.

Lamar · Feb 20, 2014

Nice Argus. My dad gave me his to learn on in the 70's. I still have it and used it on occasion but the shutter actuation strap came loose a couple of months ago so it's OOS. I have another I got on eBay. They are fun to use. Yours looks to be in really good shape as well.

Too old to care · Feb 20, 2014

I bought my C3 in the 60's, still have it and once in awhile I run some film through it. Once I had to clean it, which is simple to do. The shutter mechanism got stick due to dried up grease. Other than that, nothing else was ever done to it. Hope you got some extra lenses too, the C3 has a neat way to change them.

Wayne

ww12345 · Feb 20, 2014

If by "neat" you mean "complex and painful," then yes.

peteyj10 · Feb 20, 2014

Lamar said:
Yours looks to be in really good shape as well.

According to my dad, my grandfather probably only used it a handful of times. He said he remembered him shooting medium format a lot more than 35mm, which adds up because there was a pretty beat up TLR in the collection that takes 620 rolls. All I had to do to the Argus was take off the lens and clean some dust off of the rear element. The rangefinder window needs a little cleaning on the inside, but it's not dirty to the point that it's unusable.

Too old to care said:
Hope you got some extra lenses too, the C3 has a neat way to change them.

I only have the 50mm that came with it, but I'll probably hop on eBay and try to score the 35mm and 100mm that seem pretty common for it. I'll even see if I can find the flash for it, not to use, but to pair with the camera when I have it out on display in my apartment.

fotch · Feb 20, 2014

Never owned one myself, I must say, that is one of the best looking C3's I have seen.

elekm · Feb 20, 2014

They sold millions of these through the years. And Argus has a very strong following.

I hope that you had fun with "The Brick."

My first Rangefinder

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