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[Tom Bryant <tbryant@pars5.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

 Hi Luggers,

    I've been enjoying your posts for a month or so now, and am finally
getting around to contributing.  I have a couple of M3s and 35 - 135 lenses
for them, and am as fanatic as the rest of you about their qualities.  Nothing
comes close in the land of the coupled rangefinder.  I've owned a Nikon SP,
have played with it's Contax cousins, and dislike autofocus. The M3 Leica,
with it's accurate rangefinder, is my sine quo non. Now that you've got a
feeling for where I'm coming from, here's your long awaited rant:

>>> Is the R6.2 the best mechanical SLR ever made? I want a second hand
>>> machanical SLR, any information would be appreciated!

>Perhaps the best-engineered and best-constructed miniature-format SLR of
>all time, though, was the first "Bulls-Eye" Contarex.  This is a most
>wonderful camera in every regard.

    I haven't owned the Contarex.  I've held them in shows, and find that they
are big, heavy, seem to be superbly built, have awesome lenses, and wonderful
interchangeable backs.

    Have you ever tried an Alpa 10d?  This is the one camera that "felt" even
better than my Leica M3s.  The Macro Switar was a wonderful lens, one of the
most contrasty lenses I've ever owned, and the mechanical workings of the
camera were superbly precise.  The shutter was whisper quite.  On the minus
side, they leak dirt into the finder very easily, and you loose the top part
of the frame in the finder with long lenses, as the body was, I believe, the
thinnest SLR ever, with a corresponding short reflex mirror.  You couldn't
change the screen.  But my, what a feel!

    I currently am the proud owner of a couple of 2nd generation Canon F1s.
They have all the SLR whistles and bells I love.  Interchangeable prisms and
screens, mirror lock up, depth of field preview, user friendly controls and
superb durability.  They have the reputation of being the toughest 35mm camera
ever built (Thomas Tomosy, in Camera Maintenance and Repair, Advanced).  They,
too have a wonderful feel.  On the minus side, their shutter, like those of
most Japanese SLRs (outside of the Olympus OM series) is clacky loud, and the
breech lock lenses are slower to mount than most bayonet mounts.

    The FD lenses are fairly competent, I have a special fondness for the 50mm
f/1.4.  It's the equal of my Leitz Summilux, at 1/15th the price!  My Vivitar
90mm f/2.5 series 1 macro is the sharpest lens I own, and I do have a 90mm f/2
Summicron for my M3s.  A Vivitar, would you believe!

    Bang for the buck, the Canon F1 is the best for a manual focus SLR, IMHO.
A glance at the top deck of the F1 shows striking similarities to the M series
Leica.  I suppose Nikon users will ask why not Nikon, which I freely admit is
almost as good.  Nikons focus the wrong way.  To go from infinity to close up
on the Leicas, you turn the lenses clockwise (from the back of the camera).
The Nikons do it backwards.  This makes focusing easier for me when I'm in a
hurry, as I'm less likely to focus the wrong way.  Trivial, perhaps, but
that's why I recommend Canon.  Nikon, Pentax, and, if I remember correctly,
Contarex, focus the wrong way, if your primary camera is a Leica.

    Oh, for you T90 fans out there.  I use a hand held meter for almost
everything, ignoring the meter in the F1.  All the excellent metering
technology in the T90 would be wasted on me.

    The Leica R series, with their quieter shutters, are also rather nice, but
others in the LUG who own them have done a more through job discussing their
merits, so I won't go into them here.

    Of course, most of you might have slightly different opinions, pointing
out the me that Minolta or Olympus, to name a couple, also focus the "right"
way, and their lenses are also more than adequate.  This is just what works
for me.

    Tom