Konica AR Question

[Mr G]

Hi guys, I just won a Konica Autoreflex A on eBay, I know it's pants but it has a rather tasty Vivitar 35mm f1.9 attached. I've never really been into Konica so if anyone has a recommendation for a better Konica body, I would appreciate it. Only cost me 18GBP plus postage, so shelling out for another body is no biggy, cheers.

[Excalibur]

If you want a bit of auto plus manual the FS1 and FT1 are nice BUT beware the electronics are not very reliable so make sure you buy from a reliable seller that has a fully working one. My FS1 has been working ok for four years but the FT1 that supposed to have more reliable electronics h'mm I have had three and couldn't get one working reliably even inter changing parts between them.
A guy here (I think) said the problem is the plastic printed circuit with tracks are just clamped together and corrosion can get in between them, so I took the top plate off and cleaned the tracks and the Ft1 still didn't work properly

[TrueLoveOne]

[newst]

When I decided that I had enough Hexanon lenses to buy a film camera to use them on I bought a TC-X. This was Konica's last SLR camera, manufactured for them by Cosina. With the exception of the light meter it is 100% mechanical and works without a battery. It is a decent camera to play with.






From what I have read it was the first plastic body SLR. It is a light weight, always ready performer. I use it for walk around photography.

[stevemark]

An excellent overview can be found at Alex Buhl's hompage:

http://buhla.de/Foto/Konica/eKonicaUebersicht.html

I would go either for an Autoreflex T3N ("heavy metal", but darker viewfinder) or for a Autoreflex T4 (some plastic parts, but bright viewfinder). Alex Buhl has also lots of information about lenses - when it comes to their performance, he judges some of them a bit over-optimistic. I found the build quality of the Konica AR lenses (with exception of the last zoom lenses) to be very good, the optical performance of most primes on-par with good primes from Minolta and Canon FD. Most Konica AR zooms i bought, however, had some mechanical problems (decentered, not reaching "infinity" etc).

Stephan

[iangreenhalgh1]

The F series are all great cameras, I particularly like the FT-1 (I've got seven of them now!) and the FP-1 is great for times when you just want to shoot casually without too much fiddling.

I have all of the Konica zooms apart from a couple of the early ones and they are among the best of their time, the primes are all great, the best ones like the 2.8/35, 3.2/135, 1.7/50 and 3.5/28 are as good as almost anything you can buy without spending a lot more money.

[cyrano]

I like the Autoreflex T3, I've got both models and they are fully mechanical lovelies. Big,brassy and heavy.

[Paulius]

Usually the question, what D cameras are good for Konica most excellent lenses?
All mirrorless only, DSLR not. I have A7r Sony and with simple adapter ring can use all my Hexanon collection. It is lenses, not mechanical Konica cameras are valuable. Optic is one of the best ever made for quite affordable price.

[papasito]

[Mr G]

Thanks for the reply guys, much appreciated. I'm having a clearout at the moment as I have no much old stuff in the garage and I just found an FS1. Loaded some fresh batteries and it seems to fully work, next step is put a roll through and see what happens.