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This blast-from. the-past rangefinder may not Quite be cut ting edge, but its brand of "retro" is plenty high-tech!
If, say, five years ago, you had told the editors of this magazine that we would be testing an all-new, from-theground-up design, interchangeable-lens 35mm rangefinder in the year 2000, we probably would have ushered you into a quiet, cool room while we contacted those nice young men in their clean white coats.
Well, in this millennial year, we are testing not one, but two new rangefinders, the Konica Hexar RF (using the existing Leica M bayonet mount) and the Cosina-made Voigtlander Bessa-R (using the heretofore defunct Leica/Canon screwthread mount). This month, we will examine the highertech of the new twosome, the Hexar RF, while a full test of the Voigtlander is planned for an upcoming issue.
A quick recap of the Hexar RF: In some respects, this camera is a semi-clone of the Leica M6. Like its inspiration, it features a bright-frame viewfinder with coupled coincident-type rangefinder, parallax-compensating viewfinder frames for lenses 28mm through 135mm, and bayonet-mount lenses that automatically shift the correct bright frame into position when mounted. The frame lines even appear in pairs, just like the M6: 28mm/90mm, 35mm/135mm, and 50mm/ 75mm. And TTL metering is done via a rearward-facing meter cell in the side of the chassis that reads off a patch on the shutter curtain.
From there, though, the Hexar RF parts company rather radically with the very traditional M6. The shutter is a vertical-travel carbonfiber and aluminum alloy multiblade unit, with electronically timed speeds to 1/4000 sec. Besides matchdiode manual metering, exposures can be made on aperturepriority auto through a range down to a speed of 16 sec. And winding is motorized, either single frame or continuous firing up to 2.5 fps. (For a comparison of the features of current interchangeable-lens rangefinder 35s, see chart on page 124.)
Picking up the camera, you may at first think that the more squared-off Hexar RF is bigger and heftier than the Leica M6, with its svelte rounded ends. But the dimensions and weight are virtually identical.
The stealthy black Hexar RF is a handsome camera in its own way, coolly elegant and industrial-looking at the same time. The solid feel of...