[TwoUptons]

I have a Yashica 35MC, which is I think the zone-focusing version of the CC. It also has the slower 40mm f2.8 lens.
Fantastic lens. And the exposures are generally right on with the meter.
I would guess the shutter runs at 1/30 with the battery out before I'd guess 1/250... it just doesn't look that fast when I try it... but if I had to guess, it would be 1/60...
It uses the same battery as an AE1, the little 6V one that is really just 4 stacked SR44s.
A Quirky Guy with a Camera: Mighty Mini: The Yashica Electro 35 MC

I also have a Ricoh Hi-Color 35 with a 35mm f2.8. I kind of forgot about it... it's another zone-focuser...
I was underwhelmed with the only roll I've shot with it, but that may have been operator error... now I'm going to have to go shoot some more film with it...
It has full manual or shutter priority (with a limited range of shutter speeds, 1/30-1/300).
It also has a spring-driven motor drive, which is funky and fun, but not silent...
Ricoh Hi-Color 35 (1968) - mike eckman dot com

If you're tempted to go back in time to the Retina era, don't overlook some of the Retinettes. Slower lenses, no rangefinders, but compact and good optics.
Mine has a 45mm f2.8...

-Eric[

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Last edited by TwoUptons; 06-02-2022 at 01:30 PM. Reason: Weird double post...

[Dartmoor Dave]

After overnight consideration and some review reading, I've decided it's going to be the Yashica Electro 35CC for me. I know I said I wanted fully manual, but there's something about that one that's calling out to me and the price is right.

That's the great thing about a thread like this -- you end up discovering that what's right for you isn't actually what you thought you wanted at the beginning.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice. The depth of knowledge and experience on this forum is a joy to behold.

[titrisol]

Those cameras use a 6V battery.
If you can't find it easily you can build one yourself with 4xLR44 and some electrical tape and a small spring.

---------- Post added 03-06-22 at 11:28 ----------

Those cameras use a 6V battery.
If you can't find it easily you can build one yourself with 4xLR44 and some electrical tape and a small spring.

[UncleVanya]

Those cameras use a 6V battery.
If you can't find it easily you can build one yourself with 4xLR44 and some electrical tape and a small spring.

The electro 35cc is different from the other electro series. It doesn't use the PX32 but the PX28. There should be no need for any spring. It simply uses a PX28 or 4 LR44's electrical taped together.

[tonyzoc]

There are allot of rangefinder to pick from... from subcompact like the Olympus XA or Rollei 35 to high end like Liecas. One of my favorite rangefinders is the Konica II. There are variants like the IIa, III and IV, but I like the II for its style. Mine is pictured here...

[jopenmx]

Also a little bit longer, with a 42 mm. f/1,7 ( with 7 elements ¡¡ ) but one of the best rangefinder cameras produced : Olympus 35 SP , with possibility for spot reading system for back light control.

[Eyewanders]

Depends how compact a compact is to you. But my highest recommendation given all you've said is the Konica Auto S2.

It is perhaps the best rangefinder experience I've ever had, not just for the money but in general. Its longer than you're after, but the 45mm f1.8 Hexanon is stunning. CdS meter cell above the lens in the barrel so metering with filters attached is not an issue. Focus is smooth with not too long or short a throw, the viewfinder is giant, bright and sports automatic parallax and perspective correction that changes with focus (I don't get tired of this). Has a nifty retractable built-in lens shade. Meter reading both inside the finder and atop the body (shown in aperture scale). It's a shutter-priority camera, but can be shot in full manual with shutter and aperture control both on the lens barrel. And, in AE mode besides, the trap-needle system Konicas use make it quite quick and easy to grab the exposure you're after.

The Auto S3/C35 FD is just as stellar, considerably smaller and amazing, with 38mm f1.8... but it is shutter-priority only (there's a trick to using them in full manual but it's a fiddly one). They're also a bit spendy.

The Auto S2 though is genuinely inexpensive enough to "just try out". And good looking IMO.

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Last edited by Eyewanders; 06-04-2022 at 12:58 AM. Reason: my first image was gigantic

[ERNR]

Over the past few months I've settled on using a Lumix TZ70 digital compact for snapshots, and film in my venerable K1000 when I want some quality. But in general I'm tired of lugging around big, heavy interchangeable lens cameras and I'd much rather be shooting with something more compact. So my question is exactly as in the thread title: Can anyone recommend a compact rangefinder with a 35mm lens? Fully manual operation with proper shutter speed and aperture controls is a non-negotiable necessity, and I don't need a built-in meter as I prefer Sunny 16 or incident metering.

The obvious answer is the Olympus XA, and that's a camera that I used happily for most of the nineties and took some of my all-time favourite shots with. But my hands aren't as supple as they used to be, and nowadays the XA's controls are a bit too fiddly for me to use easily. Plus they go for stupid prices these days. (Edit: I've just remembered that the XA was aperture priority rather than fully manual So why do I remember it as fully manual? Must be encroaching senility, and in my defence I haven't used an XA since last century.)

There's a part of me that likes the idea of one of the cheap Leica LTM copies like a Zorki with a decent lens attached (an actual Leica is out of my price range). Does anyone have any experience with one of those?

I'd settle for a 40mm lens if the price was right, but 50mm is a length that just doesn't suit me and 35mm has always been my ideal.

Thanks for any suggestions anyone's got, ideally not above the £150 mark.

A very comprehensive source of information here:

Compact 35 Rangefinders

[Dartmoor Dave]

A very comprehensive source of information here:

Compact 35 Rangefinders

Thanks for that, it was interesting reading. The thing that has really struck me in this thread is how few rangefinders offered a fixed 35mm lens over the years. Personally I'd realised by about 1985 that it was the focal length that worked best for me, and ever since then I've wondered why lenses in the 40-50mm range were usually chosen. Was it really so hard to make a camera with a 35mm lens when the registration distance in the average rangefinder was so short?

The reason why I'm now shopping for an Electro 35CC after asking the question in this thread is almost entirely because of its 35mm lens.

Edit: Surely the extra depth of field of a 35mm lens was useful because you could make a compact camera with a shorter rangefinder baseline? Because accurate focus wasn't quite so important.

[The Jannie]

My main regret with te Yashica 35GT I owned was that it was programmed AE and kept its settings a secret. It handled nicely in big hands, was well made and the results were excellent but the secrecy was a pain!

[titrisol]

43mm was the "normal" focal length for 35mm
Most cameras were in that realm for taking pictures more in the normal than the wide angle side
Like you, somewhere 35 and 40mm was the focal length that resembled more what I saw
But the maker of cameras had different ideas

My guess is that lenses in the normal range (40-55mm) can be made with less complications than a 35mm

Thanks for that, it was interesting reading. The thing that has really struck me in this thread is how few rangefinders offered a fixed 35mm lens over the years. Personally I'd realised by about 1985 that it was the focal length that worked best for me, and ever since then I've wondered why lenses in the 40-50mm range were usually chosen. Was it really so hard to make a camera with a 35mm lens when the registration distance in the average rangefinder was so short?

The reason why I'm now shopping for an Electro 35CC after asking the question in this thread is almost entirely because of its 35mm lens.

Edit: Surely the extra depth of field of a 35mm lens was useful because you could make a compact camera with a shorter rangefinder baseline? Because accurate focus wasn't quite so important.

[TwoUptons]

Thanks for that, it was interesting reading. The thing that has really struck me in this thread is how few rangefinders offered a fixed 35mm lens over the years. Personally I'd realised by about 1985 that it was the focal length that worked best for me, and ever since then I've wondered why lenses in the 40-50mm range were usually chosen. Was it really so hard to make a camera with a 35mm lens when the registration distance in the average rangefinder was so short?

The reason why I'm now shopping for an Electro 35CC after asking the question in this thread is almost entirely because of its 35mm lens.

Edit: Surely the extra depth of field of a 35mm lens was useful because you could make a compact camera with a shorter rangefinder baseline? Because accurate focus wasn't quite so important.

I suspect it is lens design... by the time we got to the 1950s, folks were really good at making 50mm lenses, so those weren't much of a challenge...

In theory, if a 35mm lens was easier to make than a 50mm lens on rangefinder (with the short registration distance), all those Leica and Soviet rangefinder 35mm lenses would have cost less than the 50mm ones, right? But they never did... I suspect it was tricky, even with the short registration distance, to make a wide angle lens that covered the full frame with minimal distortion and such.

But I agree... I really like a little wide in my compacts...

-Eric

[bs8402]

I have a Yashica Electro 35 CC that I got recently. I worked with the folks at US Camera to get a new light seal kit for it. It was a model they hadn't yet been asked to make a kit for, so they didn't have measurements for it. To solve that, I got on the phone with them, and found that we shared a love of these old cameras; the folks at US Camera genuinely love what they do. I ended up shipping them the camera and they not only put seals in it while they measured it, but offered to give the camera a complete overhaul at a price I thought was astonishing. The outcomes of this were multiple bits of learning. For example now I have a pro technician's measurements of this copy's shutter speed timings (pretty good! except just a bit slow at f8) and a description of the camera's internals based on a conversation we had afterwards.

This last bit is the exciting new knowledge IMO. Basically, the Electro 35's have a reputation for a few design/build weaknesses like any other camera. You can search for "pad of death" and learn about one of them, for example. And the Electro 35 CC has a reputation online, based on a few reviews and blog posts, as "a totally new camera, unrelated to previous Electro 35 models." That turns out not to be true: despite a couple decades' experience making Electro 35s, they built the same weaknesses into the 35 CC as well. It has a Pad of Death, it has a spot where there's some light-seal foam padding hidden behind or beneath parts that will turn into tar and fall about and gum up hard-to-reach pieces, it has some fragile electronics near the battery terminals or something -- I forget some of the details off the top of my head.

None of this is atypical for an old rangefinder, but I thought it would be helpful to post here.

As for the camera, I love it. With a 35mm f1.8 lens, it's pretty unique. In fact, let me just paste in my "verdict" from notes I wrote to myself after shooting the first couple of rolls:
"Focus direction is backwards for me (That means it'll match what a Pentax user is used to! I'm used to Minolta, primarily.) The viewfinder is nice and the controls are pretty good; the focus patch is pretty easy to see; but the viewfinder info display is really lacking. I wish it would show the shutter speed. The lens is really nice for B&W, not sure about color yet. I am getting a lot more shots in focus than I feared I would, and at reasonably close range and f1.8 no less… and at that, there’s some real bokeh going on."

I also own a lot of other vintage rangefinders, like the Canonet mentioned earlier, Minolta Hi-Matics, and so on. I really like the smaller ones; most of these models started out big, like the earlier Yashica Electro 35, and later introduced at least one compact one, which just feels a lot more right-sized to me. I think my favorite two are the Canonet QL17 G-III and the Yashica Electro 35 CC. Some, like the Minolta Hi-Matic 7sII, are almost there (that one has a teeny rangefinder patch but is otherwise pretty nice).

But I haven't found one with a viewfinder display as nice as e.g. the Pentax MX or Nikon FM2. If you find one, let me know: I'd love to have a compact rangefinder with a good rangefinder patch, aperture-priority or full-manual operation, and displaying the shutter speed and aperture in the viewfinder!

[TwoUptons]

I wonder if the 35 CC light seal kit is the same as the 35 MC... since the foam is a disaster in mine...
Do you have a link to the US Camera light seals?

-Eric

[Eyewanders]

....
But I haven't found one with a viewfinder display as nice as e.g. the Pentax MX or Nikon FM2. If you find one, let me know: I'd love to have a compact rangefinder with a good rangefinder patch, aperture-priority or full-manual operation, and displaying the shutter speed and aperture in the viewfinder!

"Why I love the Pentax MX" exhibit 39B:

---------- Post added 06-08-22 at 01:06 PM ----------

And incidentally, as to your question... If you've not handled an Auto S3 / C35 FD .... do so. (shown in that photo)
Very bright finder compared to most of the compacts. Nice patch. Shutter priority. Metering shown on aperture scale in the VF.
And that Hexanon. <3

---------- Post added 06-08-22 at 01:09 PM ----------

Also.... Welcome.