Retina III S tips and advice?

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

Hi - I picked up a nice clean III S a couple of weeks ago and am most of the way through my first roll of film.

Just curious if any of you have any tips for getting the most from these sweet little cameras? Best film? Favorite lens?

I have the 28mm, 50mm (2.8 ) and the 135mm ... would love to pick up the rest of the lenses if anyone has spares lying around ... and a 28mm finder  :wink:

If the photos are half as good as the camera is fun to use I think I've found a rangefinder system that can hold my interest for some time!

I also have one of the SLR's kicking around here somewhere ... this may motivate me to try to fix that sticky shutter ... or make it worse trying :oops:

Thanks!
dan

[MichaelHarris]

Dan I have the Retina II and I love it, from what I understand they are very nice cameras.  I don't think my II has interchangabe lenses so I'm no help there but I've used Kodak 125PX for black and white and I have 3 rolls of Velvia color slide just waiting for a good day.  Best advice I can give is start shopping around for filters and hoods and have fun.

Michael

[BurninFilm]

I believe the IIIs is a very different camera from the II. There is a great review of this camera on the cameraquest.com website.

[Raid Amin]

I have a Retina III with several lenses. It is a heavy camera that is very well built and it has excellent lenses that do not have close-up capabilities. This is especially true of the telephoto lenses where the minimum distance is around 10-12 feet or so, if I'm correct here.

[Mike Kovacs]

I fixed Dan's Retina IIIS.  My impressions - its a big camera, well made.  Not for me though.

Lenses interchange with the Retina Reflex IIIS.

[melek]

Great camera with many innovative features for that era:

-- Coupled selenium meter
-- Unified rangefinder/viewfinder
-- Frame lines that change depending on the lens mounted
-- Excellent viewfinder with a wide-base rangefinder
-- X/M flash synch at any speed
-- Self-timer
-- True interchangeable lenses (rather than interchangeable front elements)

The body is slightly wider than the b/B and c/B folding models and is heavier. Build quality is quite good, but woe to the user who has to restring the meter coupling system -- that would be me.

The 135mm lens only focuses to about 12 feet, making it very difficult to use as a portrait lens.

The other choices are the f/1.9 Xenon and f/2.8 Xenar plus the Rodenstock lenses. The camera can use either the Schneider or Rodenstock lenses without any difficulty, as these are true interchangeable lenses.

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

Thanks for the advice. I've got a couple of eBay auctions bookmarked for the 50/1.9 I think the part that may be hardest to find is the 28mm viewfinder ... they wouldn't have come with the SLR and they seem to be scarce for the RF.

dan

[pshinkaw]

I have the 85mm thru 135mm. The 85mm is terrific. You might also might want to try the 50/1.9  Xenon It is  great. I think my favorite is the 35mm though.

Another source of lenses is to search for Instamatic Reflex's. Sometimes a set will appear with the compatible "Retina" designation on the ring. The Instamatics are not worth much so the sets don't get many bidders. When these Reflexes first came out in the 60's, many Retina owners "upgraded" and kept their lenses. Their grandkids are clearing their estates now. I acquired a compatibale 50/1.9 Retina-Xenon, a 35/2.8 Retina Curtagon for an average of about $15 each in one of these sets.

-Paul

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

Thanks for the tip Paul. I have my first roll of film out being processed this week so am hoping for great things from it

dan