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The Canon P is my first rangefinder-style camera that I’ve ever had the privilege of owning. It has that classic aesthetic that everyone knows and loves and (more importantly) takes fantastic photos.
This camera is your typical 50’s style rangefinder. All mechanical, metal body, and that’s pretty much it.
It has a self timer on the front of the body, but I have not used that feature yet and honestly don’t see myself using it in the future.
The rewind lever when not in use retracts to be flush with the top of the camera body, which is my favorite part of this cameras design.
I purchased this camera because I was intrigued by the concept of a rangefinder system. What do you mean the image in the viewfinder isn’t what the lens is seeing? How does that work? What is the shooting experience like?
The lens I decided to pair with this camera was a 35mm Voigtlander Color Skopar 2.5 LTM lens. 35mm is my favorite focal length and I’ve heard about how great these Voigtlander lenses are, so I wanted to give it a shot. And it is SHARP.
One of the camera’s main quirks is the built in frame lines in the viewfinder. It has 100, 50, and 35mm frame lines for you in the viewfinder, which can make it pretty difficult to compose your shots correctly.
Plus since the 35mm frame line is so wide, you aren’t able to see the entire frame line without using your peripheral vision to see each line inside the viewfinder.
My first time using this camera was at one of my good friends bachelor trip out in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and I couldn’t have asked for a better backdrop to load this camera with some film. The film stock I chose for this trip was Kodak Gold 200.
Despite the frame line quirk, the shooting experience felt natural, yet very unnatural at the same time.
First the unnatural: I could not get over how different the image looks in the viewfinder versus what the lens is actually capturing. That becomes apparent in the photos below with the main problem being too much headspace left in the top third or so of the frame.
Now for the natural part of the shooting experience: it was extremely easy to hit focus. This could’ve been helped out a bit by shooting at higher apertures, but focusing with this system seemed simple.
The photos from this first roll of film are some of my favorites I’ve ever taken, and I don’t even think they are some of my best work. When I look back at these photos though, it takes me back to that trip. Having some good laughs, some good beer and doing it all with even better people.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
This camera comes with a shooting experience that I just can’t wait to come back to again and again. It’s so good, I forget what camera I’m carrying when I’m taking photos with it.
It allows me to be present, while still capturing memories I can look back on in the future. I can’t ask for much more than that.
