Reasonably priced, durable, capable cameras that take the Leica M39 screwmount?

[GRHazelton]

Yup, Canon P is great, Canon 7 too, especially if you want to use 35mm lenses.
Does your P really have a parallax corrected Viewfinder? Mine doesn't. That's fine though, totally overrated feature IMHO.

Parallax correction is important if you're shooting close and filling the frame, especially with the 100mm tele. See the write-up I referenced:
https://www.dantestella.com/technical/canonp.html See also this: http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/CanonP.html

 

[pentaxuser]

I note that the OP left us one day after joining on Jun 25 2018. Hopefully others now or in the future will gain some useful info from what has been said since. It was a she from Los Angeles. We have had some short-term attenders in the past but only 24 hours of attendance is unusual.

pentaxuser

 

[grain elevator]

Parallax correction is important if you're shooting close and filling the frame, especially with the 100mm tele. See the write-up I referenced:
https://www.dantestella.com/technical/canonp.html See also this: http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/CanonP.html

I know what parallax correction is, but the Canon P doesn't have it. Mine certainly doesn't, and I'm not aware of any camera with reflected framelines that has it. Would be very hard to engineer. No idea how @Dantestella got the idea, I think it's an error.
I think it's overrated because when you take a photo with a foreground and a background, and focus on the foreground as one does, the parallax correction gives a wrong impression of what would be in the background. I find it much easier to figure out in my mind how the foreground behaves due to parallax than to figure out what background I really get after parallax correction has screwed with it.

 

[Chan Tran]

This is a very late reply but I think the OP should put the entire Leica setup away or sell them. With the money from the Yashica Electro the OP should be able to buy a 35mm SLR and a lens. Is there any reason that the OP has to use rangefinder?

 

[GRHazelton]

I know what parallax correction is, but the Canon P doesn't have it. Mine certainly doesn't, and I'm not aware of any camera with reflected framelines that has it. Would be very hard to engineer. No idea how @Dantestella got the idea, I think it's an error.
I think it's overrated because when you take a photo with a foreground and a background, and focus on the foreground as one does, the parallax correction gives a wrong impression of what would be in the background. I find it much easier to figure out in my mind how the foreground behaves due to parallax than to figure out what background I really get after parallax correction has screwed with it.

Have a look at this link which was in the post you're dealing with: http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/CanonP.html

 

[grain elevator]

Have a look at this link which was in the post you're dealing with: http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/CanonP.html

I know Karen Nakamura says that too. One of them may have copied it from the other or whatever. No big deal, both of their websites are great otherwise. Karen's introduced me to rangefinders.
Or I'm wrong and mine is broken. Do you have a Canon P? Does yours have parallax correction?

 

[GRHazelton]

I know Karen Nakamura says that too. One of them may have copied it from the other or whatever. No big deal, both of their websites are great otherwise. Karen's introduced me to rangefinders.
Or I'm wrong and mine is broken. Do you have a Canon P? Does yours have parallax correction?

Yes, I have a Canon P!! I wouldn't have posted my opinion had I NOT OWNED ONE! My Canon P DOES have parallax corrected framing. Perhaps it uses a moving "transparency" within the viewfinder to accomplish the compensation. BTW, my lovely Vitessa L also has parallax compensation, delivered via perhaps a moving mask which "moves" the entire VF image. Works fine!
Stephen Gandy at Camera Quest speaks highly of the Canon P, AND OF IT'S PARALLAX corrected VF. See this: https://www.cameraquest.com/canonp.htm I will admit that the viewfinder is not as good as that on my Konica IIIa, which has a projected frame, 1 to 1 VF, parallax corrected, and the frame "contracts" to indicate the slight but real change in angular coverage as the lens is extended during close focussing. The Leica M 3 doesn't have that feature, not do any subsequent Leicas, neither film nor apparently digital.
Perhaps your Canon P is defective? Have you mounted it on a tripod to check whether the compensation is working? It is quite obvious checked on a tripod, which prevents one's hand holding influencing the "view."

 

[GRHazelton]

I know what parallax correction is, but the Canon P doesn't have it. Mine certainly doesn't, and I'm not aware of any camera with reflected framelines that has it. Would be very hard to engineer. No idea how @Dantestella got the idea, I think it's an error.
I think it's overrated because when you take a photo with a foreground and a background, and focus on the foreground as one does, the parallax correction gives a wrong impression of what would be in the background. I find it much easier to figure out in my mind how the foreground behaves due to parallax than to figure out what background I really get after parallax correction has screwed with it.

Granted, parallax corrected "frames" in the VF don't really help with the relationships of the foreground and background to each other. For that you need, as I'm certain you are aware, a Single Lens Reflex, or you could use ground glass focussing and composition on a view camera. A parallax corrected VF on a rangefinder camera helps the shooter to avoid "decapitating" the subject. Parallax correction doesn't "screw" with the foreground and background relationships, that is determined by the focus point and distance to the subject, as it is in any camera.

 

[grain elevator]

Yes, I have a Canon P!! I wouldn't have posted my opinion had I NOT OWNED ONE! My Canon P DOES have parallax corrected framing. Perhaps it uses a moving "transparency" within the viewfinder to accomplish the compensation. BTW, my lovely Vitessa L also has parallax compensation, delivered via perhaps a moving mask which "moves" the entire VF image. Works fine!
Stephen Gandy at Camera Quest speaks highly of the Canon P, AND OF IT'S PARALLAX corrected VF. See this: https://www.cameraquest.com/canonp.htm I will admit that the viewfinder is not as good as that on my Konica IIIa, which has a projected frame, 1 to 1 VF, parallax corrected, and the frame "contracts" to indicate the slight but real change in angular coverage as the lens is extended during close focussing. The Leica M 3 doesn't have that feature, not do any subsequent Leicas, neither film nor apparently digital.
Perhaps your Canon P is defective? Have you mounted it on a tripod to check whether the compensation is working? It is quite obvious checked on a tripod, which prevents one's hand holding influencing the "view."

Yes, then mine must be broken. Sorry to Dante Stella and Karen Nakamura.

Granted, parallax corrected "frames" in the VF don't really help with the relationships of the foreground and background to each other. For that you need, as I'm certain you are aware, a Single Lens Reflex, or you could use ground glass focussing and composition on a view camera. A parallax corrected VF on a rangefinder camera helps the shooter to avoid "decapitating" the subject. Parallax correction doesn't "screw" with the foreground and background relationships, that is determined by the focus point and distance to the subject, as it is in any camera.

By foreground-background-relationship, I mean the spatial relationship as influenced by camera position and angle. If you want to be literal, what parallax correction does is more accurately than by "screw" described as making one frame according to foreground only, or compensate for parallax by changing camera angle rather than camera position, which would be theoretically ideal to give the same foreground-background-relationship as in the viewfinder, and which I find easier to do deliberately if the viewfinder doesn't parallax correct. Of course it's helpful if the background doesn't matter much.

 

[RLangham]

In reference to what OP said, I'm actually gonna charge in in defense of Soviet cameras.

It's not been my experience that they fall apart. It's been my experience that they need to be thoroughly CLA'd before use and will never be as precise as certain western bloc brands. It's possible to get one that's just bad but most often they're just old, out of lube and ill-adjusted. Cameras that age didn't always come out of the factory properly adjusted and a lot of Soviet cameras were simply never set up right.

If you can find one cheap and have it CLA'd (your repairman will try to talk you out of it) you can have a reliable Leica clone for less than 200 bucks, which is better value than you'll get trying to go the Japanese route.