How can a tiddly little compact rangefinder camera have such a fantastic lens? I guess this was before the Olympus execs where cooking the books. I love the XA cameras because of the cheap simplicity and absolutely wonderful lenses. If you are wanting to learn about rangefinders, grab one of these little buggers and play with it until it dies, then buy another one and keep on going! Yes, the black ones look sexy, but they are expensive and becoming more so. There are plenty of very similar cameras out there (Konica etc) and Dan K has written extensively on this, but the Canonet is accessible and cheap. Nothing amazing about the lens or the functions on this cmaera.

The good thing about the M6 is that there are loads of them, getting them repaired is a non issue and you can pretty much get what you paid for it if you decide to move on.Īn icon. I think this camera is the ideal introduction to the world of M-mount Leica. There is nothing that sets the world on fire with this camera, it gets the job done and that is what you need. The reason I like the M6 is that it is a workhorse metered Leica that will not cost you the earth, and will keep on going as long as you care for it. I don’t actually think it is the best Leica camera because of the build, some people have me mistaken on that. Which makes them a definite favourite for me. They are sturdy, can use the Ais lenses, easy to repair and service and they are inexpensive. It seems like they are built for war (in the case of the Press version, it basically was). The good thing about this camera is how tough it is. It is not as capable as some of the later offerings from Nikon, but it was plenty capable in the day and is still great now. Call it rheumy-eyed sentimentality, but for me this was and is a great camera. And the reason I love it is because it was my first true professional camera.

These cameras are simply cameras that I have considered to be fantastic bits of kit. Some of them might surprise you as to why I consider them a favourite and some of you may disagree with my decisions, as is your right. These cameras are the ones that I have used and loved. Now this is in no way meant to start any kind of ‘my camera is better than yours’ discussion. So in order to try and answer that most pressing of questions I decided to do a little list of my (current) favourite 35mm film cameras. I get a lot of mails asking me what my favourite cameras are, and I do mean a lot of mails.

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