There were definitely more than one occasion that I was cursing myself for not having my camera on me. Well actually way more than many. This brought the thought that what about an “el chipo” to carry around all the time without worrying about losing or breaking it. The digital rangefinders were a bit pricey and the film rangefinders were never to my taste.Since I’m processing my own BW, a film SLR seemed to be the best bet for now.
So I looked pretty hard and came up with a Kalimar KX-5000 with a 50/1.8 lens on Ebay. Got it in mail and noticed that the film counter was not working and the plastic insert in the battery compartment was broken. The latter was fixed with super glue, but the first took a little bit longer to figure out and fix, as I had to lift the top cover. I must admit it was fun!
The rest was easy: load up film, jump on the street, then get back and process. I then understood that how much I missed the old school cameras, with winders, three LED light meters, no automatic modes and manual focus. The best part was that the results were pretty impressive!
