Voigtlander is a very old name in cameras. But it also died long ago. A few years ago a Japanese guy bought the name and revived it. Then he fabricated an oldstyle rangefinder camera that’s basically as good as the old Holy Grail of cameras: the Leica. Only it’s relatively thrifty. And it’s new. It does a bunch of things better, too. I tell ya, it’s spooky seeing a very, very good all-new, totally MANUAL camera being put out due to the initiative of one guy (the Cosina pres). It has tons of fans. Here’s a link to a very messy, but informative and interesting website run by a popular US distributor (and fan of the new camera from the beginning).
Another cool thing not seen in mini-digi cams today is a…wide angle lens. A 28mm lens is likely the most useful. It grabs what you see, pretty much. I always found mine great for oldstyle point’n’shoot action shots, that is: thrust the camera at the action happening near you, swing your body with it and hit the shutter as it passes. It works. Without a flash. You can catch what’s going on in a room with it. You can basically be with people then take a photo of both of them, easily. 28 rocks.
But it’s not available on small digicams.
They start at 35mm.
…Except for the Ricoh Caplio!
Their models R1, RX, GX all have the 28mm wide angle as the wide end of their zooming. A geek friend of mine waited to get one of these as his first digicam: he insisted on having 28, and told me about it, and the conundrum. These cameras seem to cost $200-$400. They’re highly regarded in other ways as well: They have the fastest start-up and shutter-release times. No more waiting for the dang picture to take! They’re totally slim and compact. Then, too, they have an alloy body. Plus 3-5mb rez. A quality item. Here’s more info.
