Your most recent RF purchase

[cuthbert]

I just bought a Canon P off eBay. I've loved the P since over 25 years ago when I was a camera dealer and would occasionally get one. When I'd get one in, I'd try to use it before it got sold. Usually they didn't hang around very long, being such good looking cameras.

This one is coming from one of the Japanese sellers I'm seeing more and more of on eBay. I've bought from them before. They usually have very clean products, priced fairly, and document the items well with quality images. So I felt comfortable buying this P from this guy in Japan. Sometimes the shipping can be rather high when buying from these guys, but not this one. It was actually reasonable.

But what really sold me on this P was the shutter curtain. When's the last time you've seen a P that didn't have a wrinkled shutter curtain? Me neither. But this P's curtain looks like the camera's never been used. I was surprised. Another thing I was surprised about was this guy was offering it as an auction with low reserve and a low starting price. At 10 seconds left, it was sitting at $20. That's when I placed a bid for $92, hoping I wouldn't get outbid by a collecting fanatic. I wasn't. I got it for $71 due to some last second, half-hearted bid activity. A very clean Canon P with leather case and with a smooth, unwrinkled shutter for $71! It was indeed good fortune. Here's the eBay ID if you're interested in taking a look at my cool new camera: 191593028532

elcabezagrande, you lucky dog! What an incredible find!

Canon made great RFs, the P is very popular, and not so cheap anymore.

This is my 7s and 50 mm f1.2, both bought by one of these new japanese sellers last year.

 

[cooltouch]

Hey Cuthbert, you mention that the "P is very popular." Perhaps you're aware what Canon claimed the P stood for? Populaire. Heh. That it was. Canon sold almost 100,000 of them.

That's a very pretty outfit you got there. Do you do much shooting with it? Reminds me of my camera dealer days again. Back in those days the Canon LTM 50/1.2 was considered to be just okay. Soft. Nothing special. I'd had a few. I liked getting them because I thought they were cool. And I can recall asking a lot more for mine than what everybody else was who had one to sell. So I relented and went along with the crowd. I see that now most are priced over $600 on eBay. Back in my dealer days, they were worth maybe $150, tops. More like $80-100 was more typical.

There's a member over at mflenses who has one of those 50/1.2's. A few years ago he posted some pics he'd taken with that lens mounted to a NEX -- a 5 or 5N, as I recall. I was stunned at the image quality. Shocked and amazed. Because I'd believed what I was told all those years ago that the LTM 50/1.2 was a soft lens.

Back then, from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s or so, the market for Canon RF stuff was soft, while Leica was quite sought after, as usual, and Nikon Rangefinder was red-hot. Even the Canon 50mm f/0.95 was considered to be more of a curiosity than anything else. I even had one of those, too. I recall trying to sell it at shows and not getting anywhere. I ended up making a deal with another dealer who had a 7s and wanted the lens for his camera. I don't recall anymore what I got out of the deal. If it would have had a Nikon name inscribed on it instead of Canon, I'd have been able to put my kid through college from the sale of that lens.

 

[hri]

I just bought my first RF last week, a Vivitar 35ES

 

[cuthbert]

Hey Cuthbert, you mention that the "P is very popular." Perhaps you're aware what Canon claimed the P stood for? Populaire. Heh. That it was. Canon sold almost 100,000 of them.

That's a very pretty outfit you got there. Do you do much shooting with it? Reminds me of my camera dealer days again. Back in those days the Canon LTM 50/1.2 was considered to be just okay. Soft. Nothing special. I'd had a few. I liked getting them because I thought they were cool. And I can recall asking a lot more for mine than what everybody else was who had one to sell. So I relented and went along with the crowd. I see that now most are priced over $600 on eBay. Back in my dealer days, they were worth maybe $150, tops. More like $80-100 was more typical.

There's a member over at mflenses who has one of those 50/1.2's. A few years ago he posted some pics he'd taken with that lens mounted to a NEX -- a 5 or 5N, as I recall. I was stunned at the image quality. Shocked and amazed. Because I'd believed what I was told all those years ago that the LTM 50/1.2 was a soft lens.

Back then, from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s or so, the market for Canon RF stuff was soft, while Leica was quite sought after, as usual, and Nikon Rangefinder was red-hot. Even the Canon 50mm f/0.95 was considered to be more of a curiosity than anything else. I even had one of those, too. I recall trying to sell it at shows and not getting anywhere. I ended up making a deal with another dealer who had a 7s and wanted the lens for his camera. I don't recall anymore what I got out of the deal. If it would have had a Nikon name inscribed on it instead of Canon, I'd have been able to put my kid through college from the sale of that lens.

Dear Cooltouch, I think we already discussed about MF and my view of that forum, this confirms that: most of the users there heavily retouch pics, so much they are not recognizable anymore and they give you a false impression of the lenses in question.

The 50/1.2 if VERY soft, like all the fast lenses of that era, at the time they didn't have the coating technology to make fast lenses that were sharp too especially wide open but they needed them because the films were slow. So you have the Summarit, the Canons, the Nikkor etc...that have all this character, the Leicisti call it "Leica glow". The best of the bunch is probably the Jupiter 3 because it is better on the best design (the Sonnar) plus a decent coating, the Canons are problematic because part of the coating of the second group tends to precipitate over the third one and create holes inside it. Mine is a particularly bad one, I shot just a test film with a cheap film as well (Lomo400) and here you can see the results:

The flare:

The "glow" (all objects in direct sunlight):

See how artificial lights like lamps come out:

Nevertheless, its disadvantages can be used for artistic means:

Bokeh is very nice:

If you watch out it can be very usable:

On the RF forum you can find other pics of this lens and you immediately spot the real ones by the post processed, the good real pics are usually taken indoors, never directly to the sunshine, usually in B&W because the colours are desaturated (as they should be), low definition but with some character:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149341

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119483

That hood which comes from a FL lens is useless because not tight enough and anyway eats half of the viewfinder, the original vented one costs as ad much as the lens, I would recommend a generic one paired to some strong filters to "tame" the flare and the glow. As said before mine is a bad one but we are talking about a lens very short, very large and with a complex formula so these effects are inevitable. The 0.95 is even worse I've been told.

For the camera, the 7s is IMO the best rangefinder ever made after the Leica M5, no comparison whatsoever, but I would be curious to get a smaller P or a V or VI, most of them have the trigger instead of the lever and they were overshadowed by the "poor" popular model.

 

[cooltouch]

Well, Cuthbert, I'm afraid you and I are gonna have to agree to disagree about the typical image postings over at mflenses. I've been a regular over there for over six years and I think I know a little about the members' practices when it comes to processing their images. We don't have a problem with admitting that we've processed an image and specifically what we've done to it. Personally I don't have a problem with processing images, but I do believe it is important to stop before you change the nature of the image. To me, this means that most images can handle a bit of contrast adjustment, some light sharpening, and possibly even saturation improvement. But it's always on a case-by-case basis. I may have mentioned this to you before, and if not, I'll state it again. I have found that if an image is already critically sharp that trying to increase its sharpness in post any further does little but add noise to the image. This is also true with contrast. If an image is already optimally contrasty, trying to add any more usually just serves to block up the shadow areas and burn through the bright areas. So not all images even need it and it's important to recognize when this is the case or the image suffers.

Now, as for your 50/1.2 being soft, well, if you say so. But a few of the images you posted above look like it's doing a pretty decent job of image resolution to me. And while you freely admit you have a bad example of the 50/1.2 LTM, perhaps there exists the possibility that there are good examples, yes?

Some of the 50mm Canons built from the 1950s are outstanding performers, you know. Here are a few unretouched photos I took with a Canon Serenar 50mm f/1.8. The Camera was a 10.1 mp EOS XS DSLR. I was using an M39 to M42 adapter attached to an M42 to FD adapter, mounted to an FD-EOS adapter with the glass removed. Which means I was down to a focusing distance of just a few centimeters. The Serenar was stopped down to about f/8.

See that little brown spot on the acorn to the left?

Here's a 100% crop, showing what the brown spot has become. Again, this is an unretouched photo.

Now, as for Canon's fast 50s from the 1950s and 1960s, here's an image taken with the 50mm f/0.95. There was no PP done to this image that I can detect. Not so bad for a very soft lens, eh?

And a Canon 50mm f/1.2 LTM on a Sony a7r. No obvious PP:

Now personally, I don't have any use for the 50mm f/0.95. It's a "for looks" piece of gear anymore these days. And I wouldn't mind owning a Canon LTM 50/1.2 -- for my IIIa and my P, that is. But I already own an FL and an FD 55mm f/1.2, so I've got well-corrected 1.2s that I can use with both my Canon FD film cameras and my NEX. It's all good.

 

[cuthbert]

Michael, the 50 mm f 1.8 is sharp, and also the 1.4 (so I've been told), for the 1.2 there are many discussions on the matter, the general consensus is that's not very sharp and the pics on the rf forum on film prove that, what I am saying is that if you expect the performance of a FD 55mm f1.2 S.S.C. you will be disappointed.

The problem of the coating is also well documented, if you see on ebay a good amount of them are described as "foggy", the fog is not really fog but it's the coating issue (I and my tech have disassembled the lens and checked out), sometimes you can clean it, sometimes you can't, if the coating is damaged you'll see the "glow" like in my pics.

Personally I'll go for a 1.4, if you need one 1.2 for cheap I can sell you mine!

 

[sangetsu]

I went to buy a Nikon SP with a motor drive today, but on close inspection, the supposedly "original" black paint was applied over chrome. I was disappointed, as the price was quite good (now I know why). But on my way home I happened to spot this bugger for sale, and it really was an original black paint camera. I am looking forward to doing some shooting with it tomorrow.

 

[cooltouch]

Well, the Canon P I mentioned above arrived yesterday. It is in very nice condition. The rangefinder is nice and contrasty, although slightly misaligned in the vertical dimension -- which seems to be fairly common with these old rangefinders. Shutter speeds are spot on. The lens shown didn't come with the camera. It came with a Canon IIIa that I bought several years ago. Here are some photos.








Take a close look at the last shot. When have you ever seen a P with an unwrinkled shutter curtain? I've seen quite a few Ps over the years and every single one I've seen had a wrinkled shutter. The film guide rails show some discoloration, but they feel smooth. I'm gonna take some 0000 steel wool to them so they'll look smooth as well. And blow out the film chamber to get rid of the small amoount of dust. As you can see in the second and third photos, there is also some damage to the right side of the top cover. It's minor however and I'm more than willing to put up with that small ding to have gotten a P in such great overall condition.

 

[cuthbert]

It's very pretty, I'm thinking about getting one but I would like to find a VI-L, the problem is that the latter is very rare and fetches good money. On the net I think you can find a tutorial to fix the vertical alignment of the rangefinder.

 

[John Earley]

Purchased here at APUG recently. It's off to Mr Ye for a CLE and recover.

Leica M2 with Nikkor 5cm HC f2 LTM adapted by JOHN EARLEY, on Flickr

 

[Red Robin]

Not posted here in a while as I only had a leica 90/4 lens. HOWEVER! I now (TA-DA !) Have purchased my first Leica, a 1952-53 RD Leica iiif, no self timer, but that's oK by me. A pretty little thing inside and out.Tiny really and compared to my Canons it's really a pocket size beauty. Bit of trouble to load but using the template to pre-cut the film the rest will con with practise. A few shots in the house adds another definition for the word "smoove".

 

[colonel]

I can say this Leica MP is the most beautiful camera I have ever owned
In use its silky smooth and really a pleasure

 

[colonel]

MMMMMMMP

Just picked up a Leica MP. It's the most beautiful camera I have ever used.
Also lovely and smooth to use

 

[John Earley]

Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for my Canon P

Canon P rangefinder with Canon 50/1.8 LTM lens and Gossen Pilot light meter by JOHN EARLEY, on Flickr

 

[Peter Simpson]

Grungy looking Konica S2 off Goodwill for $20 all in. How can I go wrong? I wanted to see if what I had heard about the lens was true. If it's junk, I get to practice taking it apart and trying to fix it

 

[colonel]

Just bought a beautiful Leica MP. Pairing it with a Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 in and a Zeiss 50mm f1.5

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Peter Simpson]

Grungy looking Konica S2 off Goodwill for $20 all in. How can I go wrong? I wanted to see if what I had heard about the lens was true. If it's junk, I get to practice taking it apart and trying to fix it

It arrived yesterday. Loose front of lens assembly, shutter speed and aperture setting doesn't seem to work, rangefinder image missing. But the shutter does work (aperture doesn't) and it came with a free Alkaline battery. Lens seems clean and clear, shade is present (though floppy) and there's a wealth of repair info on the web, so I'd say I got my $20 worth. This is gonna be fun!

Oh, and it came with a faded hippy strap and dried out never ready leather case

 

[colonel]

Have almost entirely moved to film. thought I would treat myself with something in guarantee.
There is something about beauty though. I just can't stop picking this think up and taking photos

 

[colonel]

Leica MP + Zeiss 50mm Sonnar

Have almost entirely moved to film. thought I would treat myself with something in guarantee.
There is something about beauty though. I just can't stop picking this think up and taking photos