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!!
Aires Viscount 1959
RF
Format: 24 x 36 on 35 mm film
Optics: Aires Q Coral 1:2,8 45mm
Aires tele-attachment
lens 80mm (mounted in front of the standard 45mm lens)
Shutter: Seikosha SLV B + 1 => 1/500 sec.
The Aires Viscount seems and
feels like a well built rangefinder. It's quite heavy with a nice
finish, and has clearly been inspired by the Leica M just as countless
other cameras has been through the years. However the Viscount is no
where near a Leica neither in quality or versatility. The lens is not
interhangeable, but Aires offered a 80mm attachment lens, which mounts
in the front of the standard lens (80mm shown above). There is no
built-in lightmeter, and the viewfinder with the coupled rangefinder
have brightlines for 45mm and 80mm. The accessory shoe on the topplate
is not a hotshoe. The Seikosha shutters in the Aires cameras are known
not to be very durable and if you, for some reason, should consider to
buy an Aires you should check the shutter very carefully. The speed
setting works rather awkvardly and are placed on the lens through a
narrow ring coupled with the aperture ring.
On the positive side, the
Coral lens a capable to make quite sharp and contrasty pictures !
Apart from the nice body
finish this is really a camera that doesn't quite make it. The fact is,
that its excistence really doesn't matter very much. Too many
compromises really.....
Mick Feuerbacher has a very
nice page on the Aires Viscount:
Mick Feuerbacher photography
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