MOVED OVER TO WORDPRESS

Hello anyone who reads this, this  blog will no longer be updated as I have moved over to wordpress, I can be found at this link
https://kylescameras.wordpress.com/ 

Polaroid 600 SE

In the past I've owned one other medium format rangefinder, and that was a Mamiya press, this Polaroid camera was intended as a professional camera of the highest standard, the basis for the camera is the Mamiya Press, which has created a very unusual camera, with a fairly good following, and not without good reason.

The Polaroid 600SE accepts Polaroid Type 100 film which includes Fujifilms offerings of FP100C, FP100B and FP3000B, the last two have been discontinued but can still be found.
There are three lenses available in the system, 75mm wide angle, 127mm standard and a 150mm slight telephoto.

The camera itself is a fairly simple design, a rangefinder with a well designed patch, framelines for the 127mm and 150mm lenses, the shutter itself is housed in the lenses with speeds from 1second all the way to 1/500th and includes B. The backs are interchangeable and can use a special adapter to use standard Mamiya Press backs so allows access to 6x9 images on 120 film with the backs from a Mamiya Press, also in that range is 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7.

From my brief experience so far, it seems a well made camera with a unique ability to use Fujifilm PackFilm and be in full control over focus and exposure.
The 127mm lens seems to be quite sharp and has decent rendering and can produce some nice out of focus rendering which would be useful for portraits.

Leica M2

The Leica M2 is a rangefinder camera made in Wetzlar, Germany, and Midlands, Canada for a very small number of now collectors models. My M2 was made in 196-, it shows significant signs of use and has been serviced sometime in the past in Sweden by an official service centre, this camera seems to have been around a fair bit before it got to me in the UK. The M2 is the model after the M3 it was designed as a cheaper model, with an inferior viewfinder, but has more useful framelines than the M3, having 35,50,90 as opposed to the 50,90,135 of the M3. It also has an inferior user set frame counter.

The specifications are fairly simple, cloth focal plane shutter, speeds from 1-1000th and B, frame lines for 35,50,90mm lenses and an M Mount, which can use LTM/L39 lenses with an adapter.

As you would expect from Leitz, this camera is of the highest quality, with everything being smooth and precise and well fitted, right down to the take-up spool. This camera comes in several variants, mine is a common M2 with a selftimer and rewind lever, as opposed to an M2 with no selftimer and a button rewind, the M2 is one of the cheaper ways to get into the Leica M series, but still an expensive way to get into this system, otherwise a much cheaper alternative would be a Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R2 and that even has a built in meter.