New to RF

[xavierr]

Hi guys my first post! as you can see I'm new to this forum and new to RF.. got introduced to both this forum and RF by my friend and it seems really interesting and fun so i'd like to know more about it. May I know what would be a nice RF camera to begin with? I hope you pros in here can educate me more on RF as I am really interested in it, thanks guys!

 

[xavierr]

I read through this forum and i realised that many people recommend the bessa r for RF starters. I made a trip down to peninsular today as well and i got to touch and feel a bessa r3a at P&G and i must say it looks really impressive. However, i do have some questions and i hope that you guys can help me out.

1) What's the difference between the bessa r, r2a and r3a?

2) Regarding lenses, whats the difference between 35mm, 50mm and 40mm? and whats the difference between the different f values, like f2.5, f1.4, etc?

3) I saw this Yashica Electro GSN at P&G which looked really new, and I heard that russian RFs are really cheap as well. Should i start with cheaper cameras like these, or should I just start with a Bessa of my choice?

 

[knodd]

okay your questions are going to be quite difficult to answer in one simple short post but i'll try my best i guess.

1) the main difference between the R2A/R3A and the R is that the R is completely manual, while the A's have aperture priority. the difference between the 2 and the 3, is that the 2 has the 35mm framlines, while the 3 has 40mm. also the viewfinder on the 2 has a magnification of 0.7x, while the 3 has a magnification of 1x.

2) okay basically the mm things indicate the focal length of the lens. as the mm goes up, your field of view becomes narrower. therefore, 15mm would be a wide angle lens, and as it goes up the field of view gets smaller and smaller. the f stop numbers indicate the maximum size of the aperture. the smaller the f stop number, the bigger your aperture can go. so f/1.4 would be bigger than f/2.0. having a bigger maximum aperture means your lens is faster, and thus you can shoot in lower light.

3) not sure

 

[doUbleCHIN]

We can't give you defiinite answers but can share our experiences with you. The journey are different for all of us. The Yashica GSN which I have a similar one is a good start. It is a fixed Lens RF. Sharp lens but may be bigger or heavier for some but solid. My first RF is a Olympus 35 RC cos is smaller and cost only about S$ 250. I was new to RF and coming from auto focusing world, I need to know whether I can get use to the way RF focus. I would have got the Yashica first if I know there is a aperture priority Fixed Lens RF.

I began to like it over the months and soon I got myself the Bessa R3A after a year and a half. I don't think there is such thing as a beginners RF. A Leica RF can be a beginners gear if you are willing to invest. Beginners gears usually means it will cost less in the way most perceive. :bsmilie:

If you like RF, the likely hood of you owning more than one RF over the months or years is probable. You have to decide which one you will buy first. I started of with S$ 250. what will be yours ? But if you can only have one, is a tough one..... I will also say go with Bessa for now.

Plenty of RF resources in the internet. Read it up and you will find the answers that you like.

Good luck.

I noticed you are selling a Yashica MG1, not bad also le!.....

 

[ndroo]

We can't give you defiinite answers but can share our experiences with you. The journey are different for all of us. The Yashica GSN which I have a similar one is a good start. It is a fixed Lens RF. Sharp lens but may be bigger or heavier for some but solid. My first RF is a Olympus 35 RC cos is smaller and cost only about S$ 250. I was new to RF and coming from auto focusing world, I need to know whether I can get use to the way RF focus. I would have got the Yashica first if I know there is a aperture priority Fixed Lens RF.

I began to like it over the months and soon I got myself the Bessa R3A after a year and a half. I don't think there is such thing as a beginners RF. A Leica RF can be a beginners gear if you are willing to invest. Beginners gears usually means it will cost less in the way most perceive. :bsmilie:

If you like RF, the likely hood of you owning more than one RF over the months or years is probable. You have to decide which one you will buy first. I started of with S$ 250. what will be yours ? But if you can only have one, is a tough one..... I will also say go with Bessa for now.

Plenty of RF resources in the internet. Read it up and you will find the answers that you like.

Good luck.

I noticed you are selling a Yashica MG1, not bad also le!.....

The RF master speaks :thumbsup:

 

[doUbleCHIN]

Master Ndroo too much wine..... Disturbed me again.

 

[xavierr]

thanks for all your replies guys! they're really valuable to me i learnt quite a bit from them

and yeah doublechin i guess you're right.. I guess i'm looking for a good RF which will last me for quite some time before i get tempted by Leicas and stuff so which RFs do you recommend hmm?