When Cameras Are Jewelry And Nothing More: Canon IVSB

Preamble:

On this visit to the camera shop, I was donating a menagerie of SLR to mirrorless adapters. With camera gear and I, there are ebbs and flows. Gear flows. Gear ebbs. Currently, I am in the midst of an SLR ebb. Once seemed I was on a mission to gather an SLR or two from every brand. Adapting the lenses to mirrorless is part of the fun. Now that these lenses are gone the last thing I need hanging around are adapters. I am a person who was inspired to repurchase a Jupiter 9 lens after seeing one amazing image on Flickr. Wanted nothing for this bag of adapters. Just wanted them away from me.

The Exchange:

But an exchange came about anyway. Saw a camera. It was pretty. Did not want to buy it. But I did want to try it. They had not tested the camera yet. Chris made me an offer I could not refuse.

Test the camera for them. Roll of film as a trade for the bag o’ adapters…

Nice.

What was it?

A Canon IVSB rangefinder. A beautiful thing.

But… I do not want to own it.

Auto nothing. Manual everything. I have cameras like this already in my quiver. They are fun but I do not need another.

Why did I want to try it?

Just look at it!… It is cuss word beautiful.

Took it to the test spot. Duke Gardens. Brought the roll back to be developed…

Spoiler alert! It failed the test. Looks like holes in the cloth shutter. Womp, womp.

But all is not lost. For the few exposures not riddled with light spots the lens apparently performed well.

I did have fun using it even though it did not work. As therapeutic an experience as it would have been were it able to actually produce viable images.

And I had another contraption along for the ride so I did end up with some keepers.

And working or not one thing is undeniable. It is still an astonishingly beautiful contraption. Here are some pics I took of it when I was expecting to share a number of images taken with the camera. But I like these images so much that I will share them anyways. Makes sense. Because if the camera did not look so good I would have never wanted to use it. And shout out to the Sony 40mm f/2.8 G lens. It continues to astonish me. And I also must give props to the Neewer AF macro tubes for the closeup detail shots. Here they are.

The Pictures: