Seeking a very lightweight MF point and shoot camera!

[bernard_L]

Lest I'm considered a Perkeo bigot, let me state that I second also the recommendation for the S.Ikonta 521 or the various fuji 645.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

Seeing Lomo and Fuji in same sentence throws the premise of this thread off the rails. Assuming Lomo was a misprint, I read "lightweight" also as compact.

With that, it is either mentioned (and many other) vintage folders with Fuji folder sort of making it too. Vintage folders are many and at all price and quality points. Zeiss, Vigtlander, Franka, Mamiya Six, Konica Pearl and a slew of others. Set your budget and start the search.

 

[macfred]

I love my Super Ikonta III 531/16 with coupled rangefinder and Novar lens - the Tessar-equiped is reported to be better / sharper but stopped down to 5.6 or 8 I don't miss anything with the Novar.
According to the term 'MF point and shoot' I prefer one of my FUJI GA645 series cameras (I have a the f/4 60mm and the f/4 45mm 'wide' version = those EBC Fujinon lenses are famous).
Both have AF and reliable exposure metering.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

https://www.doragoodman.com/ May be an option.

 

[wjlapier]

https://www.doragoodman.com/ May be an option.

Like this? Not lightweight with the 50mm lens. The back is 6x7. But for a compact MF camera it is very well made and shoots great.

 

[Joseph Bell]

I am gratefully thanking you all! I sincerely appreciate your generosity and erudition! I am looking closely at the Fujis and the folders for now. I also have a feeling I'd love the Lomo for what it is, but I believe it is priced unfairly for what it is.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I am gratefully thanking you all! I sincerely appreciate your generosity and erudition! I am looking closely at the Fujis and the folders for now. I also have a feeling I'd love the Lomo for what it is, but I believe it is priced unfairly for what it is.

I also have a Lomo Belair with with 6x12, 6x9, and 6x6 interchangeable film masks. The camera body is incredibly simple and effective, but the lenses it comes with suck. All that being said, with the 6x6 film mask installed in the camera and the right lens settings, it can make acceptable images. Not fujinon level, but surprisingly good. The lenses aren’t good enough to have remotely sharp/aberration free corners with the larger image sizes, but 6x6 is surprisingly good.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Like this? Not lightweight with the 50mm lens. The back is 6x7. But for a compact MF camera it is very well made and shoots great.

yes. I’m totally looking at picking one of these up as I’d like to have a relatively compact 6x7 option. Right now the only way I can get 6x7 is via a roll film holder in my 4x5, which just isn’t that portable.

 

[Joseph Bell]

I also have a Lomo Belair with with 6x12, 6x9, and 6x6 interchangeable film masks. The camera body is incredibly simple and effective, but the lenses it comes with suck. All that being said, with the 6x6 film mask installed in the camera and the right lens settings, it can make acceptable images. Not fujinon level, but surprisingly good. The lenses aren’t good enough to have remotely sharp/aberration free corners with the larger image sizes, but 6x6 is surprisingly good.

Yes, I am sometimes delightedly surprised by the output of my $30 Holga and its 6x6 negatives. When a picture is properly exposed (no mean feat with this camera) there is an ethereal loveliness to the image because of the sharpish center and soft edges. The Lomo LC-A 120 will provide greater overall sharpness, slightly better rendering, and most importantly: a far easier path to proper exposure. The super wide lens is quite appealing also. This said, I feel unsettled over the prospect of paying 500 smackers for this camera when I could get hold of a Fuji or a serviced Zeiss folder for the same money! These are not real problems, of course I understand, but as Bukowski wrote: "it’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse..."

 

[bernard_L]

Then there is the Plaubel Makina, normal or wide angle. Not cheap, but 6x7 quality in your jacket pocket. And, no, I cannot submit a personal experience. Too rich for my taste.
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/293404301679

 

[Joseph Bell]

Then there is the Plaubel Makina, normal or wide angle. Not cheap, but 6x7 quality in your jacket pocket. And, no, I cannot submit a personal experience. Too rich for my taste.
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/293404301679

Too rich for mine also. I cannot even begin to think about considering this camera!

 

[Paul Howell]

What killing you is light, if you were to go for on the heavy side, a Konica Omega Raid 100 with normal and wide lens, 6X7, good build quality. Or Mamiya press with 65mm, 6X9 or 6X7 depending on the back, I have a Universal, it's my mainstay for MF. Although the Kodak Tourist is light, folds and does a good job, fixed lens, it usually is in my LF kit. The Mamiya with a 4 lens kit gets most of my attention followed by the Kowa 66. An early model Mamiya press with normal lens can be had for under $200.

 

[Ariston]

Like this? Not lightweight with the 50mm lens. The back is 6x7. But for a compact MF camera it is very well made and shoots great.

How does this focus? I thought Mamiya press lenses were stationary lenses...

 

[wjlapier]

Scale focus and use a viewfinder--I use a Ricoh 21/28 and estimate framing.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I'm going to throw in with the folder crowd here. Most are closer to "normal" than "wide" lenses, but some are on the wide side of normal. Almost none will be 6x7, because almost all use the ruby window for fully manual film advance, but there are lots of 6x6 folders with 75mm or 80mm lenses. I'm pretty partial to my Super Ikonta B, an immediately post-War version with uncoated lens. You can go a good bit smaller/lighter with an Agfa Isolette or Zeiss Nettar (no rangefinder protrusions). If you consider 6x4.5, I'd suggest a Zenobia. It's got a good quality triplet at normal length (65mm as I recall), and folds to about half the size of a Super Ikonta 6x6 -- even a bit smaller than an Ikonta A.

 

[nosmok]

Second the Perkeo and Zeiss recommendations-- Zeiss also made an RF-coupled version (a baby Super Ikonta essentially) that is truly the smallest thing of its sort I have seen. If you are willing to go into 127 film the Agfa Billy Zero is quite nice-- 4x6 cm negative in a folding package smaller than a Leica III without a lens. And Voigtlander made a 7 x 4 cm negative camera for 127, but you have to remember that extra 1cm when you're winding, the backing paper is marked for 6cm only!

 

[etn]

To me, the ultimate MF point-and-shoot is the Hasselblad SWC. But not "very lightweight" at 1kg or so. Still, it's small and handy for medium format.

 

[villagephotog]

How does this focus? I thought Mamiya press lenses were stationary lenses...

Mamiya Press lenses are all helical focusing -- i.e. they have a normal focus ring and distance markings etc.

Most (maybe all?) of them are, in fact, view lens designs, with front and rear cells mounted into a shutter, but the shutter housing is attached in one form or another to a barrel with a focusing helical. In my 150/5.6 and my 65/6.3 Mamiya Press lenses, this structure is obvious, and you can see the "lensboard" that the shutter/lens assembly is mounted on and watch it move backwards and forwards as you turn the focusing ring.

On my 100/3.5 and 50/6.3 lenses, the structure is hidden inside an outer barrel, and there are modified connections for the shutter speed dial and aperture lever to make the controls available on the outside of the lens barrel. The aperture control on these is a ring, rather than a lever.

It's interesting to me that the particular characteristics of these lenses — all mechanical, no connections to, or dependency on, the camera body (other than the mount, obviously), relatively simple view camera lens operation (in most cases), with helical focusing — has made them the first choice for a lot of these 3D-printed medium format cameras, like Mercury and Dora Goodman. The fact that they are very good lenses is also a plus, I'm sure.

 

[Joseph Bell]

To me, the ultimate MF point-and-shoot is the Hasselblad SWC. But not "very lightweight" at 1kg or so. Still, it's small and handy for medium format.

Very nice, thank you. I was unfamiliar with this particular Hasslblad.

 

[Joseph Bell]

I'm going to throw in with the folder crowd here. Most are closer to "normal" than "wide" lenses, but some are on the wide side of normal. Almost none will be 6x7, because almost all use the ruby window for fully manual film advance, but there are lots of 6x6 folders with 75mm or 80mm lenses. I'm pretty partial to my Super Ikonta B, an immediately post-War version with uncoated lens. You can go a good bit smaller/lighter with an Agfa Isolette or Zeiss Nettar (no rangefinder protrusions). If you consider 6x4.5, I'd suggest a Zenobia. It's got a good quality triplet at normal length (65mm as I recall), and folds to about half the size of a Super Ikonta 6x6 -- even a bit smaller than an Ikonta A.

Thank you for this, truly!

 

[Maris]

Light weight medium format? Try the Lubitel 166 TLR ... 590g plus a tiny bit more with film loaded and the lens cap on. Shoots 6x6 or 6x4.5 as you choose. Pictures are hard-sharp at f16, softer at f4.5.

 

[Dan Daniel]

Very nice, thank you. I was unfamiliar with this particular Hasslblad.

{ we can all wait patiently while the OP, looking for a low cost camera, looks at the price of one of these...... }

 

[4season]

Yes, I am sometimes delightedly surprised by the output of my $30 Holga and its 6x6 negatives. When a picture is properly exposed (no mean feat with this camera) there is an ethereal loveliness to the image because of the sharpish center and soft edges. The Lomo LC-A 120 will provide greater overall sharpness, slightly better rendering, and most importantly: a far easier path to proper exposure. The super wide lens is quite appealing also. This said, I feel unsettled over the prospect of paying 500 smackers for this camera when I could get hold of a Fuji or a serviced Zeiss folder for the same money!

I own an LC-A 120 and sometimes I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I don't know of anything else quite like it. If you're looking for a better price, watch for Lomography's periodic discounts, particularly during the end of year holiday season.

At one time or another, I've owned a number of the other cameras mentioned including Fuji GA645, Mamiya Six (newer electronic camera), Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss Ikonta folder, etc etc. The Fuji GA645/GA645zi et al can make swell point 'n shoot cameras, and when it comes to ease of loading film and blazing through roll after roll, there's nothing handier. But there's nothing remotely Holga-like about their optics.

Lomo is halfway between a toy and a "serious" camera, and if it costs a lot, I suppose it's because it's such an odd thing with it's 38mm lens and the fact that you can still buy a new one in 2020. Total quantities manufactured are probably tiny compared to the others.

 

[Joseph Bell]

{ we can all wait patiently while the OP, looking for a low cost camera, looks at the price of one of these...... }

Haha! I just did! Holy shit!

 

[Joseph Bell]

I own an LC-A 120 and sometimes I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I don't know of anything else quite like it. If you're looking for a better price, watch for Lomography's periodic discounts, particularly during the end of year holiday season.

At one time or another, I've owned a number of the other cameras mentioned including Fuji GA645, Mamiya Six (newer electronic camera), Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss Ikonta folder, etc etc. The Fuji GA645/GA645zi et al can make swell point 'n shoot cameras, and when it comes to ease of loading film and blazing through roll after roll, there's nothing handier. But there's nothing remotely Holga-like about their optics.

Lomo is halfway between a toy and a "serious" camera, and if it costs a lot, I suppose it's because it's such an odd thing with it's 38mm lens and the fact that you can still buy a new one in 2020. Total quantities manufactured are probably tiny compared to the others.

Well said and many thanks for this. I keep thinking about the Lomo for the reasons you mention. Right now I'm debating between the Lomo and the Fuji GS645s, different as they are...