Poofy Goof Rant-O-Matic

my brother-in-law gave me a rollei 35S for my birthday last year. he (or rather his dog) discovered it in his hedge, after believing it had been stolen during a burglary many years ago. despite the years of bushy exposure, (luckily it was still in its case,) it was still in basic working order. I ran a roll of film through it, decided I needed the light meter fixed, and paid ~$100 for some professional CLA. I've been using it sporadically ever since.

posts on The Online Photographer mentioned that the Sigma DP2 parallels the Rollei 35 series, (not really an affordable choice at the moment,) and that using a leica for a year will make you a better photographer, so I figured I'd do an old-school combination of the two and shoot exclusively with my rollei 35S for a year, or I run out of my 100' spool of arista EDU ultra.

for those who are unfamiliar with the rollei 35S, it's an odd little beast, and one of the smallest all-mechanical 35mm film cameras ever made. critiques about the 35SE which is a close cousin to the 35S are valid, but most of them I can live with. the shortcoming I have the most difficulty with is that there is no focusing mechanism to speak of. the diminutive 40mm lens opens up to a very respectable f/2.8, but there's no rangefinder, making it near useless in low light situations unless you're focusing infinity. I've tried some workarounds, including a custom-made parallax-based distance-estimator, (I can't recall where I found the web-based program to generate it,) but it's no substitute for an actual focusing mechanism.

anyway, I'm considering the purchase of a minolta hi-matic 7sII rangefinder if I actually get through my year/spool of rollei. it seems like it would be a great step up from the rollei, but still fill a similar size category. (leica can go snoot themselves.)

as much as I love the XD11, it's simply too big to carry around on a daily basis.

of course I could also get a minox... the madness never ceases.

I suspect the hold-up for my year/spool-of-rollei will not be the shooting or even the developing, but the scanning. the guys at the photo department of my local fred meyer claim they can do scans of B&W, but depending on who's working the equipment, the results are highly variable.

update, 2009-09-17. the bessa R3A looks attractive as well. B&H has new bodies for $600. a quick check on ebay shows used prices in that range, which also include a lens.