Re: Light, portable camera

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@apple.com>]

The light/portable/pocketable camera is a subject near and dear to 
my heart. I'm a serious Rollei 35 freak, owned (and might own again)
Minox 35, and Minox 9.5mm camera junkie as well. I've owned and used
Olympus RC, XA, Pen F and Stylus cameras for years, of course I also
have the Leica Minizoom and had a Nikon 35Ti ... And I've
owned and loved Leica III, II and M cameras for 30 years, along with
Nikon SLRs.

While this thread is not particularly Leica, it really is where I 
hope Leica could go. These viewfinder 35s are for my purposes as 
useful as a systems camera, rather I use them far more than the 
systems cameras despite the latter's flexibility.

If you're not interested in this discussion, please just delete this
note now. Sorry for the length of it.

>Rollei 35 vs Minox 35 - weight, size, etc

The Minox 35s are a polycarbonate body and use a trap door to fold
and close the lens. When closed, the dimensions of the camera are 
just that hair smaller than the Rollei, and the plastic body is a 
good 5 oz less than the Rollei. However, the Rollei is a tougher
camera, except for the economy B, C and LED models they are all
aluminum chassis with superb finish. They're about 1/2" thicker than
the Minox folded, but about the same size when ready to take a picture.

The Minox focusing is a simple front element movement and the 
aperture mechanism is a two-blade design. The Rolleis with Tessar
lens also have front element focus, the Sonnars move the entire
lens unit instead. All the Rolleis have a 7-blade aperture mechanism.
The Tessar is an excellent lens, the Minoxar lens is also excellent,
but the Sonnar on the Rolleis is the equal of any lens I've ever used.
Both these cameras have a tendency to flare more than the Leica M
under certain circumstances unless you're using the lenshoods. I always
use the lenshoods on the M as well as the Rollei 35s so I rarely see any. 
The Rollei's folding lenshood can be left on the lens when you collapse
the camera, as can the filter, where the Minox hood and filters
must be removed to collapse the camera. The latter are also slip-on
items and are only available in very limited types, where the 
Rollei uses either 24(T) or 30.5(S) threaded accessories which are 
available in a pretty wide range from Heliopan and others.

The Minox uses an electronic shutter with aperture preferred exposure
automation (or Program on certain models) where the Rollei has all 
manual shutter/aperture with a coupled meter. The Minox electronic
shutters have had a history of problems, but they've improved
them over the years and they're now quite reliable. I find the focus, 
aperture and shutter wheels on the Rolleis to be much easier to use 
than the Minox controls, which are small and a little fiddly for my 
size fingers. .

Similarly, both cameras have good viewfinders but the Rollei edges
out the Minox. The worst thing on the Rollei 35s up until the Classic
model is the fact that they put the flash shoe on the bottom of the 
camera ... since I don't use flash that much, this hasn't been too 
much of a distraction but it is an annoyance. The film transport 
in the Rollei is also just that much more robust. 

>I love my Rollei 35 but must admit
>it is slow to deploy, heavy, lacks rf and has a few counter-intuitive
>controls. I have a sharp 11X14 enlargement over my desk that came from a
>tri-x negative made by my Nikon point & shoot with 28mm lens. The latter
>camera is light and compact and has proven an excellent performer. Others
>I enjoy include a Konica 35 rf and Canonet of 70's vintage. 

It's a personal thing, but I don't find a Rollei 35 slow to deploy 
at all. Mine are always set at an approximate exposure with the lens
prefocussed for what I'm looking at ... it's pull the camera, unzip
the case, pull out the lens and shoot 90% of the time. I then usually
check the meter and focus and snap another picture after fine 
adjustments. With a 40mm lens, I find my ability to scale focus is 
better and faster than the speed with which I can focus a rangefinder
or reflex camera, and there's no auto-focus hesitation or the need
to target a focusing spot.

When it comes to PnS compacts, I tested the Leica Minizoom against
Nikon Lite Touch Zoom, Olympus Stylus Zoom, and Pentax IQ zoom, all
the 35-70mm models. It won on exposure quality and lens quality 
hands down and going away ... I have several pictures from the Minizoom
that enlarged beautifully to 20x24 poster prints with results 
indistinguishable from the best of my Leica M and Nikon SLR images. 
It's head and shoulders better than my Nikon 35Ti was, while costing
only a third as much. The only 35mm camera I've owned that produces a 
significantly superior image is my Rollei 35 Classic. If you want
full automation and the flexibility of a modest zoom, it's very hard
to beat the Leica Minizoom for a pocketable camera.

There used to be many inexpensive, larger bodied Minoltas, Canons,
and Yashicas available which had excellent optics, but alas! they're
all gone now and the used ones are becoming a problem to fix when they
break due to lack of parts availability.

>I have had superb pics from the Olympus RC.  Lightweight and small, with
>manual overide and a RF.   I "discovered" them after I heard Peter
>Gowland praising them.
>plentiful and cheap, they often sell in the $40-50 range.  While not as
>small as the popular XA, I think it has a better lens.

The Olympus RC and Petri 35 were both superb little cameras. Only thing
that let them down, moreso the Petri than the Olympus, were somewhat
cheap construction quality and the disappearance of service parts. I think
there was a Ricoh in the same size and feature class that was also very 
good. 

The XAs were a favorite of mine but you're right, they didn't have as good
a lens as the RC does: a lot of edge falloff until you get to f/8-11.
The all plastic construction of the XA also lets it down eventually:
the film gate wears with extensive use and becomes imprecise, and the 
wind mechanism is a bit fragile. While they have a decent rangefinder,
I normally just scale focussed the XAs anyway. (Yes, I am really serious,
I find I get better results with scale focus and use it extensively
with 20-40mm lenses on 35mm cameras, even with my Nikon SLR or Leica
M.)

All put together, I use my little Rolleis more than any other camera
I own now, with the Leica Minizoom and my Minox 9.5mm cameras running
a close second, and the Nikon SLR well behind that. I find great freedom
in not having interchangeable lenses, in being able to carry my complete
camera 'system' in a small belt bag, and in being able to rely upon 
complete control of all the settings. Batteries do not matter, I can 
fill-flash at all speeds easily if I want, and the optics are stunning.

Photography is a matter of seeing for me, equipment can be a big trap.

Again, sorry for the extensive amount of non-Leica stuff here. Leicas
are worshipful machinery and if they suit your needs or you just like
them, there aren't many cameras that are more delightful. But as tools
for my use, the M is too large and heavy (it's as heavy as the Nikon FM
and almost as large) while not being flexible enough, it's a bit too 
much money. A CL would likely be more satisfying to me, someday I'll
have to try one although I'm leery of the fragile reputation, whatever 
the truth of it may be. My Minizoom is really my ideal Leica: a camera
that allows me to take pictures without thinking of the details of
exposure or focus beyond a very rudimentary point. The Rollei 35 
provides me a more ideal photographer's camera in that I am in complete
control of everything about it and it's very small and handy.

Godfrey