Konica iiia

Shot on a recently purchased new (old) camera. The Konica iiia was a rangefinder camera produced in Japan in 1958. The 48mm Hexanon lens (six elements in five groups - as on this one) was made for the domestic market and a 50mm lens was used for their export model. It's a remarkably sharp lens and it's also a weighty camera with no expense spared in its production (unusual in the early post-war period when cheaper lighter materials were often used due to the cost of importing materials). The top and bottom covers are constructed of brass so it's also nice and strong and rigid with a really beautiful velvety chrome finish, the one I have still looks like new. It has a lovely bright viewfinder (with parallax correction) and unlike most cameras of its era, they used solid prisms for the view and rangefinder. The most notable quirk of the camera is the film advance mechanism which is not on top but on the front, requiring a double stroke to advance the film and cock the shutter - this takes a bit of getting use to. The Seikosha-MXL shutter is incredibly quiet, probably one of the quietest cameras I own. The film speed and aperture are changed via rings on the lens body, they originally used an EV locking ring which was quite common for the period which locked the aperture and shutter speed together to allow you to use an EV reading. I had the EV lock disengaged on my camera so they both move independently. I've included a digital image of the camera for the purpose of illustrating all of the above.

Photographer:
frukie
Uploaded:
2020-02-01
Camera:
Konica iiia
Film:
Fujicolor 200
Lens:
Konica Hexanon 48mm f2
City:
Somerset
Country/region:
United Kingdom
Albums:
Konica iiia
More photos by frukie