RF as a travel camera

L

lars

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FYI, I've been in Hawaii for about a week now, using my fully-featured uber-SLR and 24-105 and 70-210 lenses, and my Bessa R with 35, 50 and 75 lenses. Although I frequently find myself using my SLR because I must (telephoto, 24mm, polarizer), the small size of the Bessa makes me wish I could use it all the time. I can easily carry it in an inconspicuous army surplus medic bag and have it close at hand. The SLR gets carried in a camera back pack because I hate carrying that much weight and bulk in a shoulder bag. So far, the use has been half SLR, half RF. If I had the CV 21/4 that I lust after, I think I would be using the RF more than the SLR. The only filter I'm using a lot is a polarizer but I think I could handle using one with a rangefinder if I keep my old, beater polarizer in my pocket to figure out the correct alignment for the scene.

For people/urban photos, I think I could get by with a 100% RF travel kit. FWIW, I'm not trying to justify my preference for the RF. I actually enjoy using my SLR but the small size of the RF has made the weight and bulk of the SLR much more noticeable than before. The only downside with the RF is that it's screwmount which makes lens swapping more tedious than it needs to be. However, the Bessa R's super low price makes it unlikely that I'll upgrade to an R2 just to get a bayonet mount, unless I find a good deal on a used R2. Oh yeah, the R2 doesn't have a self-timer which, IMO, is a major shortcoming in a travel camera.
 
Going to Lauglin, Nevada in February. So far my cameras of choice will be a Bolsey model B and a Fed 5. Just to see the Customs official's face, if for no other reason.
 
Lars, in 1963 I joined the Peace Corps and after some training in Puerto Rico, Denver, and Mexico I was sent to Ecuador. My only camera at this time was a Japanese rangefinder - a Beauty Super II with a fixed Canter 45mm f/2.0 lens. This camera was compact, but solid and well made, and it endured a lot of hard traveling. It took sharp, wonderful pictures that I still enjoy. There were times when I would have liked to use a macro or telephoto lens, but the Beauty didn't have those capabilities. It could handle anything else I wanted to record, including general photography, available light work, portraits, and landscapes. I used the "foot zoom" to get the compositions I wanted. There is something to be said for the discipline of working with one camera and lens, although specialized lenses do have their place. I still have the Beauty Super II and it still works.
 
I bought my Bessa L with the intent of it being a travel camera. More meant for backpacking than touristy stuff. It's soooo much lighter than my SLR. Plus I usually end up taking mostly landscapes anyway when I'm out camping.

I met a guy on the trail once that was hating life because he brought 10 pounds of glass out... for a week.
 
Usually, I travel with both, RF and SLR cameras. However, the RF is vastly more convenient for the kind of "athmosphere" shots you can take without being too conspicuous. And now, with interchangeable lenses, life is a lot sweeter!

My travel favorites: Contax G and Canonet. In fact, the Contax is a toughy, thanks to its titanium body. Leica ain't bad, but I feel a bit too self-conscious with it.
 
SolaresLarrave said:
Usually, I travel with both, RF and SLR cameras. However, the RF is vastly more convenient for the kind of "athmosphere" shots you can take without being too conspicuous. And now, with interchangeable lenses, life is a lot sweeter!

My travel favorites: Contax G and Canonet. In fact, the Contax is a toughy, thanks to its titanium body. Leica ain't bad, but I feel a bit too self-conscious with it.
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I'm back from my 3-week Hawaii trip. I got the 400 ISO film developed already (took it to a 1-hour place because they were mostly snapshots). The 400 was shot by my Bessa R and an Olympus Stylus Epic that my wife carried. The Stylus has a well-regarded 35/2.8 lens but after looking at the shots, the manually focused and exposed shots by the Bessa R are all sharper and better exposed. OTOH, I often used the Stylus in conditions where I wouldn't use my Bessa (rain, steam). But still, even with the standard 4x3 (or whatever) prints, it was pretty easy to tell which camera shot which pictures.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when the 100 ISO (Reala) shots will be ready. The Minolta SLR shot most of them (mostly scenics) but I also used the Bessa R for a few. I'm still undecided over whether or not the Bessa R can be used as my only travel camera. It will probably come down to WHERE exactly I will be travelling.

One thing I did notice when comparing the usage of my SLR vs. RF. It would be GREAT if the Bessa's meter showed a plus/minus exposure range of 3 stops in either direction. That way I could quickly and easily determine where currently metered subject fell in relation to 18% gray. My Maxxum 7 has this feature and I used it a lot, as well as its graphical display of the relative exposure values for various segments of the image. I wouldn't expect the Bessa to have the latter feature (for starters, it would require a multi-segment metering system) but displaying more than +/- .5 EV would be a huge improvement, IMO.

Also, making the external metering LEDs (as found on the Bessas L and T) standard on the R and R2) would also be great (in addition to retaining the internal metering display).

BTW, I noticed with my 24-105 that I often either used 24 OR 105 with only a small percentage of shots between those two extremes.

With the Bessa, I used the 35 the most, then the 75, and then the 50. The 35 was used over 50% of the time and the 50 was used for very, very few shots. This confirms my guess that a 21/35/75 combo would be ideal for me.


...lars
 
Curiously I think I've regretted more bringing too much stuff than the opposite.

So my option would be either a LTM body with 50 and 35 mm lenses or one of my Minoltas with the 50 and 24 mm. I don't feel very comfortable with focal lenghts past 50.

Oh, and apart from that, some MF support just in case, my Rollei Va or one of that wonderful folders.
 
I think the RF choice is fine for travel, with my only regret being lack of the occasionally desired macro shot. A tidy simple kit is increasingly welcome! Years ago I'd pack my Pentax 6x7 with three lenses and tripod to Hawaii etc but no longer.

Three years ago on a visit to the Málaga area of southern Spain, I had quite a small carry bag but it had three cameras! An Olympus with 500mm mirror that I rarely used, the Minolta CLE with its 40 + a 90mm Tele-Elmarit, and a Bessa -L with 15 & 25mm lenses. Film and a Gossen meter. Increasingly the 25mm turned out to be most used, so was transferred to the CLE, leaving the 15 on the Bessa. I used the 90 maybe 2 or 3 times total, but the 40 was quite useful. I was pretty happy with this kit, but next time I'd leave the OM+500mm home.

Last year when we were in Hawaii for a few weeks, I took only a Fuji GS645S, the manual camera with 4/60mm and "cattle guard". Its meter was untrustworthy, so again the Gossen went along for incident reading chores. And the RF was sticky so I focused by guess. That's fixed now, but what I didn't know about then was the broken parts in the lens mount, from impact before I got it.

I was satisfied with the one camera and one lens, about equal in view to a 40mm in a 35 camera. I used Kodak Portra 400NC, which produced very nice prints, processed expensively at a lab on Maui. I think I'll mail them next time to our lab near home.

And though the Fuji is now fixed up like new, next time I'll take the delightful Bronica RF645 and its three lenses. Yeah, and my old Gossen meter!
 
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