Dnext

In my bid to give rangefinders another go, I went on a bargain hunt for one that is lightweight and easy to bring around. I spent a lot of time looking at the Konica C35 series and ultimately really wanted the best one of them all - the Konica Auto S3. The hunt being bargain, though, I settled for the Revue 400 SE with a Revuenon f/1.7 40mm lens which is believed to be extremely similar to the Auto S3.

The funny thing is my copy does not work in auto mode so the aperture stays wide open at f/1.7. Despite my usual preference for shallow depth of field and slight overexposure, I do think it is actually too wide for my shooting habits. I have a roll of expired Fujicolor 100 in it right now and while I usually shoot that at 1/60 or 1/30 sec, I decided to stick to box speed to compensate for the wide aperture. We'll see how that turns out.

Rangefinders tire my short-sighted eyes out trying to find the perfect focus but I've slowly but surely warmed up to the system with this camera. I was correct that I needed something light enough that I didn't otherwise have both weight and focus to grumble about on a photo walk. The focus throw is short so it saves me a lot of time to frustrate over perfect focus, which is something that really works for a short-fused person like myself. I was also testing the Zeiss Ikon Contessamatic E at the same time and its longer focus throw did make me mull impatiently over precision - the Tessar lens, though, oh my. I'll leave the gushing for the next post.