Help Me Find a DSLR As Small As My Rangefinders

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Submitted By: justcorbly

Joined: Sep 9 2007

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Help Me Find a DSLR As Small As My Rangefinders

Posted: December 27, 2007 - 6:25pm

I'm sure this may be seen as one more version of the perennial "What Should I Buy?" question, but maybe not:

I shoot manual focus film-based rangefinders. Less because I'm enamored of film and more because the cameras and lenses are small and light.

Manual focus is increasingly a problem for me, so I am looking at going to autofocus. With the exception of the Contax G2, autofocus cameras do not exist in rangefinder land.

So,is there a digital SLR that's about the same size as a rangefinder, with a selection of lenses, that I might consider? I also own a Canon XTI fitted with a battery grip. With its lenses, it's too cumbersome for me to haul around, to give you an idea of my requirements.

I know about the Leica 8 and the Epson RD-1 (too expensive and too much of a parts and repair risk, respectively.)

Submitted By: David B. Brooks

Joined: Apr 19 2011

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Re: Help Me Find a DSLR As Small As My Rangefinder

Posted: December 27, 2007 - 8:45pm

There are a number of high-end point&shoot cameras which are compact, have good range zoom lenses and many of the features of a dSLR but are both much more compact and lees costly for what you get. One of the odd ones that is respected by serious photographers is the Ricoh Caplio GX100 with its interesting hot-shoe plug in video viewfinder accessory. Close to a dSLR is Canon's G-9 with 12MPX and a long range zoom. Another make respected by some serious users is the Panasonic Lumix LX2K.

In other words you can obtain some of the advantages of the classic 35mm RF in size, compactness, and handling in a digital and with many of the auto advantages including auto-focus, auto-exposure in addition to a high megapixel image quality and considerable manual control of exposure factors, and Raw save format for maximum quality.

Submitted By: Larry Berman

Location: Pittsburgh

Joined: Mar 7 2005

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Re: Help Me Find a DSLR As Small As My Rangefinders

Posted: December 28, 2007 - 5:04am

The smallest DSLR would be the Nikon D40/D40X. But if you're looking for the stealth of a rangefinder, as David suggested, look at the Ricoh cameras. The GX100 has a 24-72mm zoom and can be set so that The zoom's focal length can be fixed at 24/28/35/50 and 72mm. When I was looking for a small professional quality pocket camera, I decided on the Ricoh GRD with a fixed (no zoom) 28mm lens. I love it and have been able to capture unique images with it. Additionally if you're been a fan of shooting black and white tri-x, the GRD has very little noise reduction so it's black and white mode, even at 1600 ISO, has a noise structure very similar to film grain.

Submitted By: ronk II

Joined: Oct 2 2006

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Re: Help Me Find a DSLR As Small As My Rangefinders

Posted: December 28, 2007 - 2:11pm

Check out the Olympus SP series 18x optical zoom and image stabilization.