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Posted on Sunday October 10, 2021
Today I went to a camera shop and traded in two rangefinder cameras: a Nikon S3 and a Konica Minolta piece of junk. It was fun seeing the staff member I was speaking to actually get slightly excited when he recognized the S3. It's an impressive little piece of engineering and it's in excellent condition.
The S3 is a really beautiful camera, but it was just collecting dust on a shelf. Since I picked it up a couple of years ago via a Craigslist ad, I have only shot with it on a couple of trips. It was a pleasure to use, although the rangefinder patch was quite dim. Additionally, I never quite got used to the lack of a TTL viewfinder, and wound up wasting a couple of rolls of HP5+ shooting with the lens cap on. Ultimately I found I prefer the more practical Nikon F (and later the F3) SLRs for general use.
Since I bought the Sony Alpha A7ii in January of this year I haven't much touched the 35mm models.
I figured that these two rangefinders would be better used by someone else, and decided to trade them in for credit toward a lens I could use on my Sony Alpha. This I know for a fact I'll actually use.
After testing out a couple of the lenses I settled on a Voightlander 35mm f/1.4 "Classic" piece with the Sony E mount. Having mainly used adapted Nikon and Mamiya glass with the Alpha, the compactness and electronic features afforded by this lens were a treat to use. Being that it's a manual-focus lens, and has an all-metal construction like the vintage glass I'm accustomed to, it feels like quite a natural fit for me. I also haven't owned any lenses with a focus length below 45mm, so the Voightlander fit right in with my collection. It really lives up to the "Classic" moniker: it's got a vintage feel with modern features.
Hopefully I'll have some shots taken with it to post here soon.
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