Topic: Searching for that perfect camera....

[Ed Wenn]

As mentioned a couple of months ago, my daughter is really enjoying film photography and has been using her late grandfather's Canon Sureshot Zoom XL pretty solidly and successfully for the last 6 months. After spending a lot of time with me in August on holiday though she's jealous of some of the features of my Pentax ME Super and would like to change out the Zoom XL for something with a manual focus. The only thing is that she wants it to be light and small...certainly lighter than the ME Super and smaller than the Zoom XL.

Are there any recommendations for a small-ish, light-ish SLR or RF that might fit the bill? I have a pancake lens for the ME Super that would reduce size and weight, but not by enough. The Canon EOS SLRs are really light, but they're quite big. I still have 50-60 cameras stashed all over the house, but maddeningly enough, none of them is right.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

[Bryan]

Have you considered the Olympus OM-1.  Not sure how light it is compared to the ME but it’s quite compact.

[02Pilot]

How small and how manual? A Rollei 35 is pretty tiny and gets you a meter, but you're stuck with a 40mm lens. Screwmount Leicas and copies are only a little bigger, and you get lots of lenses to choose from, including collapsibles. Any of these will fit in a pocket.

[EarlJam]

Seems like there's a good range of choices below the dimensions/weight of the Sureshot Zoom XL. From the Canon archive:

Dimensions & Weight   161 x 150 x 78 mm, 1510 g (with batteries)

In the mid/late 70s and early 80s, there were a good number of cameras in the 500g or less range. I'll make a pitch for a couple of possibilities, starting with the Olympus 35RC, one of my favorites. Just a smidge larger than the Rollei 35, but with a RF and more conventionally positioned shutter and aperture controls. The Canon Canonet QL17 Giii is also one to consider. Main issue now with this category is the mercury battery, but there are workarounds with the Wein cell or an adapter to modern alkaline/silver cells. In addition, these can be used sans battery with Sunny 16 rules.

In SLR-land, the Nikon EM with the 50/1.8 pancake lens might be a contender. On the arcane side, I was always partial to the Konica Autoreflex TC, but those never sold in any particular volume and may be difficult to find, along with lenses in the Konica mount.

[Pete_R]

There's a host of basic SLRs that use the PK mount that you could fit your pancake lens to. Many have plastic top and bottom plates that keep the weight down but still use a metal chassis. The one I would recommend is the Vivitar V3800N. It's really a Yashica body but with a PK bayonet. I have one. They can usually be found cheaply if you look around. A few on ebay now. Alternatively, the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000. There are lots of Yashica lenses to choose from and most are pretty good.

[Francois]

I must say that Yashica lenses are really good. And a Yashica was my first SLR, so I have a weak spot for them.

But I'm going to suggest something different. A Minolta X-300 series camera.
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Minolta_X-300

It's lightweight. Minolta has some of the best lenses I've seen. They're pretty robust, and the usual fault with them can easily be fixed just by opening the bottom plate. So far I've fixed two of them and while it takes a few minutes of looking around, it's fairly easy as it's just a hook that skips the notch it's supposed to fit in on the crank side. It's got both a manual and aperture priority mode. Takes two LR-44 batteries that can be found anywhere.

And best of all, they're some of the most pleasant cameras to use that I've come across lately. Not feature rich, but they just have this little thing that makes you go wow.

Maybe she'd like this one?

[Kai-san]

My suggestion would be a Contax Aria with a Zeiss Tessar 45/2.8 pancake. It weighs 645g with lens, batteries and metal lens hood, and it's a very handy and fun camera to use.

[Ed Wenn]

Thanks all for the suggestions so far; there is already lots for me to look into and digest.

I was researching the smallest full frame 35mm SLR an hour or so ago and ended up on ANOTHER CAMERA FORUM via Google. I know, I know....I felt unclean and needed a wash afterwards. Anyway, I mention this because the discussion topic was on the smallest and largest 35mm SLRs. Obviously there was debate, disagreement and some simmering discord but the Pentax ME Super got a lot of mentions in the 'smallest' category and that helped me reset my thinking somewhat. If I already own one of the smallest 35mm SLRs and my daughter judges it as being too big for her, then I probably need to discount SLRs from my thoughts.

[Francois]

Mmmm... Try and ask her what part she finds too big about it and whether she wants a fixed or removable lens. Zoom or not. That could go a long way to finding something.
But my guess is that it's the bulkiness of an SLR that she doesn't like.
So, lets see...
I don't think she wants to play with the aperture right from the start.
On the small factor, there's always the XA series. You can't get much smaller than that and they do have zone focus in the case of the XA2.
There was also a Voigtlander version of a Minox35-like camera that was a lot more robust than the Minox. That's also tiny.
There's always the Minolta CL that is pretty darn small, but I don't think you want to pay those prices and most of them end-up with a dead meter.
Have you looked at the Canonet series? (http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Canon#Fixed_lens_4)
They're small and light rangefinders that are pretty darn nice.

[Ed Wenn]

This may sound slightly superficial, but I think she enjoys the 'vibe' of grabbing the lens and twisting it to focus...that's probably the crux of it.

[Francois]

That totally makes sense to me as it gives you a definite feedback that you don't get with a P&S where you half-press, re-frame and send it.
Do you think she wants the old-skool aesthetics?
I'm starting to think of older models that have a rangefinder like an Hi-Matic.
Or, if she doesn't care about auto-exposure, there's always a FED or a Zorki, but they are a bit bulky in a way. But you do need an exposure meter to go with them which becomes a bit cumbersome to some people.