Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

I'll readily admit that I have a camera disease. The newest and exciting member of the family is a Konica Auto S2. I bought it from a very nice young man on Craigslist for $20. The Konica Auto S2 is a rangefinder camera from the mid 1960s. It has a 45mm/f1.8 lens. As you may have guessed the "Auto" in the name refers to the built-in lightmeter that allows for shutter priority photography. Unfortunately the lightmeter in mine is broken and I have to guess at what the correct exposure would be before each shot. I've been through one roll of film with the camera and it's shown to not be much of a problem. The 1-hour photo place can compensate for most errors in the development process.

Shooting with a rangefinder is a different experience than I'm used to. First of all the camera itself is much lighter than the very heavy Topcon Unirex SLR that I've been hauling around lately. As a result it's easier to keep steady.

Focusing a rangefinder involves matching two superimposed images in the viewfinder. This operation takes a bit of practice, but is neither easier or harder than focusing an SLR. It can however be hard to see what's going on in very bright light. In those cases the SLR is faster to handle. In low light the rangefinder wins by a large margin. Indoors it can be hard to see what's going on as the SLR's viewfinder becomes very dark very quickly because of all the light lost in the mirrors. The rangefinder doesn't have a mirror box and the viewfinder is much much brighter and the two superimposed images are pretty easy to match up in low light.

Finally, the Topcon Unirex is very loud as the mirror slaps up and while that's fun to listen to it can be very disruptive in certain situations. On the other hand I can use the Konica to take pictures during presentations without annoying the other participants. There is no mirror that needs to move up, only a quiet leaf shutter to open and close.

This doesn't mean I'm jumping on the rangefinder bandwagon entirely. The unirex has a better design on the shutter speed and aperture rings making it better to handle and it can focus significantly closer to the lens (especially with an inexpensive diopter filter). Also, using a polarizer filter with a rangefinder is next to impossible so when I'm in that mood I'll grab the SLR.

If you stumble over a $20 rangefinder camera I highly recommend going for it. At the very least it's a fun experiment to try a different camera design than the ever-present SLR, and who knows maybe it's what you never knew you always needed.

I'm taking photos on film again and it's a lot of fun, if a bit expensive. It began in February with an cheap fisheye camera and by now our collection is up to half a dozen cameras. My current favourite is a Beseler Topcon Unirex that I acquired used for a reasonable $70. It is a consumer SLR from the early 70s (production was stopped in 1973) and despite its age it is in a very good condition.

My father can confirm that I have been talking about SLRs for a long time, but there have been no way I could justify the cost of buying a digital SLR. A used film SLR is another matter and since the Topcon uses an extinct lens mount I will not be tempted to buy additional lenses. I am very pleased with the 50mm f/2 on this camera.

Learning how to use a mostly manual camera is an enjoyable experience. The underexposed and out-of-focus pictures has a certain charm to them and film grain looks good unlike the decidedly un-good look of digital film noise. B and I have setup a photoblog—quaint, I know—where we collect mostly photos shot on film and items from B's vast collection of old family photos.

My first camera was (of course) a film camera. I was 13 and I got it as a present from friends of the family. Fixed-focus, fixed focal length, fixed everything. I still have it is a closet somewhere. There are actually a couple of scans in an old blog entry from that camera. I never used it much because developing film is very expensive for the Danish teenager. Now that I am slightly more affluent (no doubt thanks to the dollar tanking) this is not a great concern. It also helps that the film cameras are either fun (fisheye) or more sophisticated (SLR) than my first.