Cult Cameras

CultCameras

Leica and Nikon; especially for 35mm. The former marque started a revolution in photographic seeing and reporting from the moment the Leica 1 (model A) camera was first launched at the Leipzig Fair in 1925. Oskar Barnack's basic prototype design concept embodied in the 1913 Ur model has changed little in the 80 odd years the marque has been around. A favourite of photojournalists world-wide, current models include the Leica MP and M7 film cameras and more recently launched, the M8 digital rangefinder camera body. M bayonet fitting objectives dating back to 1954 are interchangeable between all three models, as well as between all bayonet fitting camera models (with some lens exceptions) from the M3 to the M6 TTL. Older screw mount lenses may also be used on these cameras with an appropriate Leitz or quality machined third party adapter.

The Nikon M and S model rangefinder cameras began life in Japan's post war years with the first model being launched in 1946, with the last, the Nikon SP, being discontinued in 1966. Factory remakes of the Nikon S3 and SP appeared in the years 2000 and 2003.

The Nikon rangefinders were designed around the best features of the Carl Zeiss Contax and the Leica rangefinder cameras of the period but initially struggled to gain international acceptance among users because of their odd frame size of 24 X 32mm or 24 X 34mm. Later models were modified to satisfy U.S. market demand for a frame compatible with Kodachrome slide size, which of course, meant a gate measuring 24 X 36mm. The cameras became popular with photojournalists for their rugged appearance, durability and excellent lens performance extolled by LIFE magazine shooters David Douglas Duncan and Horace Bristol. However, the launch in 1959 of the Nikon F single lens reflex camera stifled further growth in the market for the company's rangefinder models. Good quality used examples are not plentiful in Europe and prices tend to be higher than in the U.S. or Japan for fine, mint examples.

The lack of an integral exposure measurement device may also be seen by some as a drawback, but the S2, S3 and SP models are very user friendly with little handling difference - except for rangefinder viewing - from the Nikon F and F2.

New Kid on the Camp.

When the Bronica RF645 rangefinder camera system was launched in 2000, it represented the culmination of 4 years of R&D work to bring to market a compact and durable interchangeable lens medium format camera. It was the first of its format type to appear for several decades - the 6X 4.5cm format had its heyday from the 1930s to 50s - being launched simultaneously with three electronically operated shutter-between-lens objectives, all rangefinder coupled, together with accessory viewfinder and custom electronic flash unit.

Because of the format's rectangular shape (ideally suited, by the way, to traditional 10 X 8 inch print size.), the need to squeeze as many frames on a roll of 120 or 220 film as possible and maintain compact design criteria, holding the camera in the conventional way produces a portrait/vertical image; only by rotating the camera either way through 90 deg, can the user obtain a landscape/horizontal view.

The RF645 is designed with this in mind. It features a moulded handgrip housing the shutter release on the right of the body (as looked at from the rear) with the shutter timing control wheel neatly and ergonomically placed. A special body integral dark slide is activated whenever lenses are switched, preventing film fogging. Lenses are additionally re-armed after each exposure and film can be advanced with one or several ratcheted strokes of the lever wind. For medium format, the camera is so compact it hardly feels larger than a Leica fitted with an accessory trigger or motor winder and is certainly lighter and less clunky than some 6X6cm and 6X7cm alternatives.

So far as I am aware, only three different focal length lenses were made for this camera; Zenzanons RF45mm f/4, 65mm f/4 and 135mm f/4.5. A recent report in an English photo magazine suggests there may also have been an RF100mm f/4, but I have not been able to substantiate this. While all the objectives are fitted with electronically controlled leaf shutters speeded to 1/750th second (in program mode only) and 7 bladed diaphragms, they must be manually focused in the same direction as Leica lenses. All three were designed by Bronica, and although specification does not say, probably manufactured by Tamron Co Ltd., who owned Bronica at the time of the camera's launch. In any event, the lenses are easy to handle with wide rubber surfaced focus grips and large diameter aperture setting rings. Now discontinued, the model is nonetheless a classic tool in the making.