I recently bought an analogue camera and I’ll be trying to explain why…
Some years ago I purchased my first DSLR, a Nikon D90, and had a lot of fun with it. I mostly used the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 (equivalent to ~53mm on full-frame cameras) and, more often than not, wide open and in black & white. (I guess some people call it “street photography”) The main problems with the camera were, that I didn’t have it with me all the time because of the body’s size and everybody and their brother noticed the rattling shutter/mirror. After a lot of missed opportunities for good shots I decided to look for something more pocketable with a viewfinder and a comparable or better performance taking b&w normal-lens shots wide open (at least f/2).
There are a few options for that: Leica M9 (unfortunately no option because of the price) A digital compact camera (small sensors and bad or no viewfinders) A Micro Four Thirds camera Fuji FinePix X100 A rangefinder film camera + scanner
So let’s talk about Micro Four Thirds cameras… There are basically two manufacturers building small mft-cameras with viewfinders, Panasonic with the Lumix GF2 (external viewfinder) and Lumix G3 (which wasn’t even available back then) as well as Olympus with the E-PL2 (external viewfinder). Lensewise the most interesting option is the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 (equiv. to 40mm). I don’t particularly like the idea of needing a protruding external viewfinder all the time, so for me the G3 would have been the best option. You can get the G3 with the lens for about 900 € in Germany. The problems with this solution are the small sensor and the problem of the viewfinder not being optical.
Circumventing the problems while still being digital and (barely) affordable is the Fujifilm FinePix X100 with it’s hybrid viewfinder concept. It is featuring a non-interchangeable 23mm f/2 lens (equiv. to 35mm) in front of an APS-C sensor. One can get it for 1000 € in Germany. It has a way larger sensor than the MFT-cameras and the hybrid viewfinder seems to be working very well (unfortunately i never got to try it). The problems are that the lens is non-interchangeable, which wasn’t really a criterion but nevertheless is annoying, the lens is a bit on the wide side and the price is quite steep.
The last option was using a hybrid development process (developing the film and scanning the negatives) and a rangefinder film camera. One downside of this is the development process itself, which needs some time and the continuous need to buy supplies (films, chemicals). The other downside is that you have to take all shots on a film at the same film speed whereas you can select the ISO value for each shot separately on a digital camera. The bright side however is the large size of the film in comparison to the mentioned digital cameras as well as the optical viewfinder and nonexistent or very low (light meter, sometimes shutter) battery consumption. Another point is the low loss in value over time (if any), as there aren’t very much new analogue cameras to be expected, and there are many collectors still buying every rangefinder they can get hold of. As I researched the different rangefinder options I decided to go for one with a M mount since there is a wide range of lens options for this mount with new ones released every year and the possibility to switch to a Leica M9 (or a successor of it) digital camera in the future. While other rangefinder mounts are pretty much dead with just a small amount of lenses to choose from (like the otherwise very interesting Contax system). The obvious choice for a M mount camera is a Leica. If you want a built-in viewfinder, you can choose between M5, M6, M7 and MP. The M5 is too big and the M7 & MP (still made today) are too expensive, so the M6 ist the only option left. It still is a quite big camera (in comparison to the digital ones) and has no aperture priority mode. So I decided to look for other cameras supporting the M mount: There are newer ones built by Cosina and sold under the names “Voigtländer Bessa” and “Zeiss Ikon”. The Zeiss is pretty expensive, the Voigtländer can be bought for 650 €. I didn’t try them, but I don’t expect the best build quality, so I looked for other (cheaper, better built and maybe smaller) options and finally came across the Minolta CLE (here is the story how they came into existence). The camera featured all the things I needed (light meter, aperture priority mode, small size, satisfying build quality, low price used), so I waited some time for a good deal on ebay and finally got it.
I paid 550 € for a Minolta CLE with 40mm M-Rokkor 1:2 and a flash (which I never use) as well as a bag (which I use as much, since the camera fits in my trouser pocket). For the Scanner (Plustek Opticfilm 7400) I paid 175 € and about 80 € for the lab. This adds up to 805 €, which is far below the price of the other solutions if you consider resale value and a potential upgrade to digital M. The supply costs amount to 0.089 € per photograph. (Tri-X 400, XTOL, Adofix, water as stopper, distilled water for last wash cycle, surfactant), which is still acceptable to me, because I don’t take a lot of shots per time (I even delete ~80% of my digital shots very soon after taking them). It actually improves the quality per shot considerably and it’s still cheap enough to take a shot on spec.
We come to the conclusion that analogue (rangefinder) photography can still make sense if you primarily take b&w shots wide open, need a small and discrete camera, don’t take a great deal of shots and are on a budget.