But at f4, it’s about the slowest prime 35mm I’ve ever seen. There is even a 5.6 version. X-SI find both auxiliaries easy to use with the dual finder. Transferring the focus takes a few seconds, but it's actually pretty easy when you get used to it. I mostly zone focus with the 35 anyway. Beautifully finished cameras that are a joy to use.
Andy
But at f4, it’s about the slowest prime 35mm I’ve ever seen. There is even a 5.6 version. X-S
And then you have to find 60mm filters if they didn’t come with any, or coloured 60mm filters if you’d ever want to filter B&W with coloured filters.
...
if they didn’t come with any, or coloured 60mm filters if you’d ever want to filter B&W with coloured filters.
Look it’s certainly not useless and it’s fun to play around with. But I’d take a second 35mm lens equipped camera any day.While f4 seems quite slow by today's standards, f3.5 was pretty normal for rangefinder era lenses in this focal length. I don't really find it much of a handicap in use, as I generally shoot this lens stopped down a bit anyway. I do a lot of my filtering in PP when doing B/w conversions, and have had no problem finding a polarizer, and several other BW filters. I think it's one of the last remaining bargains in 35mm rangefinders of the era. Compact, and a real pleasure to use. I have a LOT of cameras and this is one of my absolute favorites.
Andy
The IIIc is perhaps the ultimate fixed lens 135 folder in a long and proud line, where during last stages of design the designer, noticed that SLRs, Leicas and Contaxes sold rather well, and got anxious.
Chris seems fine. He’s still posting YouTube videos, as recently as last week. There are many good and affordable on eBay. Buy a decent one at good price (not difficult) and have Chris overhaul it. You’ll be set for a long time!
If you are going to permit 828 cameras, the Bantam RF was the source of the majority of my Dad's best Kodachrome slides:
I've got one of those. Unlike most 828 cameras, it uses a friction roller to stop the advance and doesn't depend on a feeler to set the shutter.
Look it’s certainly not useless and it’s fun to play around with. But I’d take a second 35mm lens equipped camera any day.
Just the very fact that you have to unmount the lens to collapse the camera tells you something about the ambitions of the designer.
It was an afterthought, later cameras would do better.
The IIIc is perhaps the ultimate fixed lens 135 folder in a long and proud line, where during last stages of the design work, the designer noticed that SLRs, Leicas and Contaxes sold rather well, and got anxious.
The real Retina RF with interchangeable lenses came out just a year later and made a mockery of the IIIc aux lenses.
The mighty Retina IIIS.View attachment 244355
(image from Cameraquest)
This is how you do changeable lenses on a rangefinder.
It clearly shows just how slow and cumbersome the IIIc lenses where.
In many ways the IIIS is more advanced than the Leica M3.
For example:
Automatic viewfinder adjustment for different focal lengths.
No goggles needed for 35mm.
Due to leaf shutter, flash sync to 500.
Build in light meter.
Sane film loading.
None of the Kodak 828 cameras have a feeler which sets the shutter. The shutters are everset on on the cheaper pre-war Bantams and cocked manually on the Bantam f/4.5, Bantam Special, Bantam RF and the Pony 828 cameras.
That’s a beautiful story, Matt. Funny how we are, something we wanted when we were younger often never loses its luster- it is perhaps even more satisfying to realize it later in life. Your dad must have really enjoyed it! Wonderful photo too- I’m hoping to shoot with mine today.When I was growing up in the 1960s, my father really wanted a Retina IIIc. He was the customer Service department manager at a Kodak Canada Kodachrome lab that had a repair department run by a Retina repair specialist and had access to everything that would make that possible except for one inconvenient fact - he had a young family and a wife who wasn't employed outside the home - it just didn't make sense for him to spend the money!
By the time he could reasonably afford it, the Retinas had been out of production for more than a decade, but he never really stopped wanting them.
Move forward 25 years, when film cameras were going for much less due to the advent of digital, I realized that I could obtain a reasonably priced IIIc on eBay. So I bought one, and gave it to him.
Dad didn't get a lot of years of use out of it - he was already in his 80s when I gave it to him - but he enjoyed it for as long as his eyesight permitted.
He gave it back to me a few years later, because he knew I would put it to good use.
He is gone now, but I certainly think of him whenever I use it.
Here is one result from it - it has served me well in 11 x 14 size a couple of shows:
View attachment 245225
That’s a beautiful story, Matt. Funny how we are, something we wanted when we were younger often never loses its luster- it is perhaps even more satisfying to realize it later in life. Your dad must have really enjoyed it! Wonderful photo too- I’m hoping to shoot with mine today.
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