I saw a small ad in our free paper for a "Photo Swap" held every first Saturday of the month. Turned out to be sponsored by a film, paper, chemicals store across the street, in their parking lot. It was a little overwhelming! There were only six or so tables set up, flea market style, but they were piled up with cameras. Mostly SLRs - lots of OM-1s, -2s, etc. Also Nikons, Canons, and some rarer models. I searched for rangefinders
and found a couple of Canonet QL-17's, one was $50 asking. They seemed in good enough shape, maybe stiffish on the focusing rings, but cosmetically good. It was nice to handle them after reading so much about them here at RFF. Also I got to handle a Voigtlander Vito, which I've only looked at on a well-known auction site. It's a viewfinder only, very bright finder! And I did like a Kodak Retina IIIc, very small and clean. As I say, it was a little overwhelming. I didn't bring a lot of cash because I was afraid of blowing it all on the first visit! They had a couple of prime lenses for my OM-2000, too, a 50/1.4 and a 50/1.8 Zuiko. After using rangefinders for a while, I'm wondering if I shouldn't put a 35mm or 50mm lens on my slr and get some use out of it. The zoom lens no longer holds much appeal, except for portraits.
So, anyone in the Bay Area ever check this place out? It's at 435 Bryant downtown. Anyone else have advice, stories about buying from used camera markets?
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