I have no interest in owing cameras as objet d'art, or objects of semi-religious devotion and am not a collector my only personal interest in them is to use them to make pictures.
I prefer my Canon New F1's to work with, not museum pieces that are not only very limited in their application, but cameras of that vintage usually have terrible small view finder's.And you can still do that with cameras from this auction.
I prefer my Canon New F1's to work with, not museum pieces that are not only very limited in their application, but cameras of that vintage usually have terrible small view finder's.
I speak from experience I've owned a 1936 Zeiss Contax for 62 years and it has a long bass rangefinder, but it's within a a view finder that's so small it's difficult to see through, and the Canon New F1 is about as modern as I wish to go without having the camera making the decisions for me.All 35mm cameras have small viewfinders compared to a medium format or LF camera. Following that logic the cameras of old had bigger viewfinders than modern cameras. The most precise 35mm RF camera was created in the 1930's the Contax still has the longest rangefinder base of any 35mm RF camera, accessory viewfinders especially the Albada kind again for the Contax are just sublime. BTW the Canon F1 is a museum piece as well just a bit younger but outdated nevertheless.
The photographs and cameras for sale are all currently exhibited in the Gallerie Westlicht well worth a visit. This Auction also puts a special emphasis on photo books. The cameras that are not being sold often end up in the Leicashop at reduced prices
The New F1 isn't a "fully manual camera" you are mistaking it for the Original F1 which is purely mechanical , the New F1 is capable of aperture priority AE and shutter priority AE with the AE prism Finder FN and the AE motor drive , or AE power winder FN. The shutter is a hybrid electro-mechanical one that will work without the battery on all the speeds from 1/90th sec. to 1/2000 sec.Benji I haven't used mine for 62 two because I am not as old as that. Regarding the small viewfinder an accessory viewfinder helps a lot. I love my Albada finders. I also agree the F1 is a superb camera but from 2014 perspective it is severely outdated just like a Contax or any other fully manual camera. It's also important to note that neither the Leica nor the Contax were in widespread use before the war. Pros mostly used bigger tools and they had much bigger viewfinders if they used one that is. The Westlich auction sells all kind of cameras from collector items to user. Some are of course purely fetish and not really usable at all for modern photography. The Leicashop/Westlich Auction nr1. customers come from China and Japan and they buy them as fetish unfortunately some even end up in museums.
If it had AF and 500 points metering I wouldn't want them,they are steps in automation too far for what I require.Missed the new part still a good cameraand still outdated since it doesn't have AF, 5000 points metering etc...
Most great cameras are outdated that what makes them great or at least more robust
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