On 8/6/05, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I had a CL plus Summicron-C 40/2 and Heliar ASPH 15/4.5 in 2000-2001. > Always liked the CL but found it to be a bit fragile and mine was a > fussy little bastid when it came to film loading.
It certainly isn't as sturdy as M-series Leicas, and it certainly doesn't ~feel~ as sturdy, but I've put mine through a fair bit, and other than a cracked viewfinder front window that was repaired, it's come through just fine. I don't have any problems loading it. I've read that it's a hell of a lot easier than M-series bottom-loaders. <g> > $500 for a CL with > 40/2 in "pretty good condition"? I doubt that very very much, even > today. I bought mine for $750, body only, and sold it for the same > thing. KEH has a CL body and 40/2 lens at about $790 for the pair, > and they're prices are generally quite reasonable. I got mine about 4 years ago (I think), and paid $800 Cdn for it; at the time, the exchange rate translated to almost exactly $500US. I was poking around eBay at the time, just to see what they were going for, and IIRC, $500US for an excellent body, and $500US for a cosmetically well-used but mechanically sound body plus 40mm Summicron C seemed to be the going price. That being said, I just popped over to eBay, and $800US seems to be the going price these days. Maybe the RF renaissance has increased their prices (which is okay by me!). > The CL and 40/2 is a very good camera, but not a substantially better > picture taker than the Rollei 35S and its Sonnar 40/2.8. And the > latter is about 1/3 the size. You can buy a mint- Rollei 35S for > around $300. While I was in NYC, I bumped into another courier who had a Rollei 35. We held our cameras next to each other to compare. It is certainly not 1/3 the size of the CL. Even if you meant 2/3 the size, I'd say that's not accurate. It's slightly smaller on all dimensions, but not that much, from what I recall. The collapsible lens makes the Rollei more pocketable to be sure, but with the lens out, the difference in size is maybe a few millimetres in each dimension. The problem I see with the 35 is it's lack of a rangefinder. Scale focusing wide open can't be that accurate. Yes, I'm hyperfocusing with the CL a lot of the time, but it sure is nice to have the option to focus with a rangefinder when I need to (please, no comments WRT my focusing ability or desire! <LOL>). It's also nice to have the option of switching lenses on the CL. They certainly are fine (maybe great) cameras, and produce sharp images, and are well worth the price, but I'm pretty happy with the CL - it's advantages are well worth the extra money, at least for me. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
