I have now (November 2004) had my Bessa-R for a two years so it might be a good time to look back and reflect how the little rangefinder camera has fared.
During these two years the camera has actually not seen a lot of action: my main camera has been the Pentax MZ-S so my Leica M6 and the Bessa-R have been in the background. It has seen some use so something can be said and by and large the little camera has behaved very well indeed and there have been no technical faults at all.
At first I must describe something about why I did purchase the Bessa-R. Because I did have two Voigtländer lenses I decided to have one body as well. After a lot of thinking I arrived at the Leica Thread Mount equipped Voigtländer Bessa-R. Why? Because I reasoned that staying with LT mount I would have a light travel kit to replace the Canonet I sold and that the kit would keep simple and light.
At the time I also thought about slimming down my camera systems because much of it was hardly used at all. The first thought was to sell the Leica equipment because it has some financial value which could be liberated. But then I thought that it would be nice to have a rangefinder camera anyway - but one with very limited system - I had liked my Leica CL very much. The Bessa-R is quite similar - but also different, of course. With it I would have a compact system and because of the Leica Thread Mount the system would have limited possibilities for enlargement - in other words I thought that I would not need to buy many lenses. That was why I did not buy the Bessa R2 which has Leica M mount. And to some extent I was right - but not enough. Even when I decided to get the Bessa-R I knew that I would need a short telephoto - the 2.5/75 mm Color-Heliar to be exact -and after a while I did get the chance to purchase an used one from USA - and it is very light and the quality is excellent - and that is in the picture above.
So: the combination of one body plus 35 mm and 75 mm lenses is a good outfit for travelling light, with the 15 mm added for the special occasions when it is needed. All are small and light and easily pocketable. But then - and it was really to be expected - I found the gap between 15 mm and 35 mm very large. Something was needed in between. After much thought I decided that the best lens for my purposes would be the 4/21 mm Color-Skopar - and that´s what I now have. And I have promised myself that I will not buy any more lenses. Honestly. But I have not sold any Leica equipment recently.
As always, there are bound to be some criticisms - the perfect camera has not been invented yet - but let us start with the good points first.
The viewfinder is clear and absolutely among the very brightest. Quite comparable with Leica M6 in my humble opinion. The rangefinder is clear, too. The lightmeter is easy to use with LED arrowheads pointing to the direction towards which to turn the aperture ring and a central dot indicating the correct exposure. The viewfinder has parallax corrected framelines for 35, 50, 75 and 90 mm lenses, 35 and 90 being paired. The frameline selection is manual, with lever on top of the camera. That is OK, no hardships here.
The exposure system works well but is sometimes a bit vague. Shutter speed sequence is the classic from 1 to 1/1000 seconds with 1/2000 as an added bonus. Flash sync speed is 1/125 - good.
The lenses are first class. All can be used for Leica with adapters. Especially the 75 mm would be useful for Leica as well but the 75 mm frame in Leica M6 (and others) is awkward because it is paired with 50 mm frame, they are too close and not easy to differentiate.
Quibbles? I´m sure other people can find some - but for me the Bessa-R is very good as it is. OK, it is plasticky but that makes it light. The Leica Thread Mount is slow to use but that was my conscious choice. I really do like the camera.
Conclusion? In my experience the Bessa-R is a very good camera: it is easy to use, the classsic controls are extremely well laid out, the quality is good enough and - the most important thing - the handling is truly excellent.
And one more thing. The 2.5/75 Color-Heliar lens is a firm favourite of mine. It is light and compact and very sharp. It even has some Leica glow which I hope you can see in the picture below.
The image is not the best for judging the sharpness because it was shot in a quite dark surroundings - full aperture at 1/30 sec - so a bit of camera shake might be present - but contrast and colour rendition are good. I really like this lens, I only hope that the 75 mm frame that Leicas have would be better - but on the Bessa-R this lens really shines.