I’ve always wanted a Leica but never understood the compromises of rangefinders. So much justification for allowing the limitations of the system just to say that it’s quiet and maybe a little faster. I understand the complexity advantages of not having mirrors or heavy prisms but SLRs are so much easier day to day. I risked it with buying this R4 from CA. Once I figured out that I had a 2 cam lens instead of a 3 cam version, we got along just fine. Not sure why there was a mismatch in lens/body eras, but such is the collecting life.
Polaroids were always an interest for me. The chemical magic without all of the time and effort makes so much sense. That magic turns into a hard sell after your 4th shot is a blurry overexposed mess. They may get there in the future but these will live on the shelf for now.
I had this for about a year, and had hoped I would love it. Fact is, way bigger negatives are way bigger hassles. The lens was very good, the body was okay but we never really hit it off. I had one box of Portra 160 and some cheap (likely the source of my issues) film holders and it was a pain in the butt. I might follow up on large format, but I’m just too spoiled with 135 format.
This was bought solely for the lens and back film holder. I was building a few home-brew cameras and needed a medium format system to work with. The camera itself was fairly nice for the time it was made. Mamiya did a great job with the lenses. Super simple and easy enough to use.