Mallin' with my Bessa

[rbelyell]

recently i bought a lovely 101 Anniversary Edition Bessa T, navy blue. certainly, a real 'looker'! i took her for a spin to an area mall just for fun, to see how she, my summicron-c 40/2 and some ferrania 400 would do indoors. i was pretty happy with the results. not much pp; c&c always welcome!


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[GrahamNR17]

[poilu]

[martinsmith99]

Good looking camera an images.

Ferrania is an acquired taste; the grain puts some off and I must say I tend to shoot only their 100 iso film.

[std]

Very beautiful camera

[Excalibur]

Great looking camera, but the film results look like the developer was stale (or maybe Ferrania is like that anyway).

[rbelyell]

thank you guys! i do think this is one of the 'sexiest' cameras ive seen, and its great to operate as it has a 1.5 RF magnification. it is said to bethe most accurately focusing RF cam, and i can attest that even close up wde open i get accurately focused images where i never could manage that with other RFs.

i really like ferranis, its depth and color is unique to my eye. i dont really mind the grain, though certainly in low light it can be distracting. i got a block of it at a great price, also.

[Nesster]

Paul, that is one beautiful camera, and I can't believe that is a 1.5X viewfinder -- I'm not at all familiar with this model - does it have frame lines etc and a spacious view?

Ferrania does have its own color rendition, I think of it as tending towards browns (whereas e.g. some Kodak tends yellows)...

[Schnauzer]

That is a really nice looking camera and the pictures came out great.

[rbelyell]

thank you both!

jussi, the camera has no frame lines in the RF, only the magnified view for focusing only purposes. for framing one must use an external vf. i had an old tewe 35-135 vf that attaches to the cameras hot shoe and works great for a variety of FLs. the camera has a light meter that reads out on the back of the camera just underneath the hot shoe, which is great for hyperfocal shooting as you get a reading while lifting the camera to your eye. i often shoot it that way paired with the cv snapshot skopar 25/4.0. even with the evf it is a jacket pocketable rig, and i in fact carried it in my pocket for this days shooting.

the camera comes in less expensive non anniversary editions in both black and chrome. in fact i presently have my first pristine chrome model for sale. tnere are also additional anniversary enameled editions in black, grey and olive. they typically come with a special edition CV nickel heliar 50/3.5 lens/matching finder, considered by many to be one of the very sharpest RF lenses ever made. i recently sold my lens set on the rangefinder forum. its a collapseable tiny tiny lens, very well made and quite beautiful. it was a great lens, but i much prefer 35-40mm FL to 50, so off it went.

and yes, ferrania does have a deep color rendering in the red/brown family that i like very much.
tony

[fish4570]

cute camera. and ferrania is one of my two favorite c-41 films, the other being memories 200.