English rangefinder

[PaulC]

I just grabbed this for £51, which seems like a pretty good deal for a coupled rangefinder:



It's a late production (1949-50) version of the Ensign Commando camera, which apparently never caught the public's imagination. The vendor says there is a problem with the shutter release linkage - but he seems to say the same about most folders with a built-in wind-on lock, which makes me wonder if he just doesn't know about it.

[Minolfan]

Looks quite nice! Hope that the camera works and you can present some samples - I believe that hardly any British made camera is still in use?

[mo]

A lovely looking camera I have seen a few on the bay in Australia not sure if working models though.I will be interested to see how it works.

[Xpres]

Very nice looking example. I have one of these, and some other English cameras... still in use!

[Farside]

[PaulC]

The Mamiya Six was first produced in 1940 while the Commandos weren't issued to British forces until late 1945, so Mamiya's claim looks safe. I read somewhere that the camera was a pre-war design, in which case the moving focal plane was invented twice though it seems more likely that the idea was simply pinched from the Japs.

According to my vendor, everything works except the linkage to the shutter button. It also fires from a cable release, so I should be able to produce some samples once I get my hands on it.

There's some interesting stuff about the British camera industry (RIP) here http://www.gbcameras.org.uk/ . The last manufacturers appear to have given up in the early sixties (apart from special military aero cameras produced by AIG). The UK industry seems to have been dogged by a number of problems: 1) launching new cameras that are 20 years out of date; 2) launching good cameras, like the Commando, and not being able to supply the market; 3) Ensign's Bulldog-like determination to die rather than demeaning itself by producing the inferior 35mm format that its customers preferred; 4) the sheer insanity of British designers who delivered to the disbelieving user such innovations as the camera that stabs you if you don't wind it on (Ensign) and a camera which you have to turn from one orientation to another in order to changes the shutter speed.

[kansalliskala]

How did you get the original sales-picture feel to that photo. It is just like clipped from old Reader's Digest.

[PaulC]

[luisalegria]

Just speaking as a collector, that is a very good price for that.
Its a keeper, and will be a good investment.

[mo]

Click here to see on Ebay
Here's one for a BIN of $180au...

[PaulC]

[Nesster]

Nettar 515: serious lust here. I got into this whole rigamarole when our photographer daughter found a 6x4.5 Franka somewhere in the house. Ever since I've thought the format is the cutest, smallest, most portable way to go - unfortunately the Franka even after cleaning is at most 'vintage marginal' in IQ.

That Nettar is ravishing.

[PaulC]

Yup, 645 is a great size. Unless you are a person who is good at square compositions you are likely to get just the same out of a 645 as you do out of a 6x6. Only you have to crop the 6x6 to get the conventional frame shape, so you are wasting film AND carrying 50% more camera with you.

For me, the next natural step up from 645 is not 6x6 but 6x9.

But I still love my Pentacon Six, of course, or I wouldn't be paying a small fortune to send it to be fixed in Germany.


PS: That 515 is an f6.3, so I am likely to stick to the 516, with its cracking f4.5 lens as my shooting camera of that size.