KONICA HEXAR RF
Review and Photo example of the HEXAR RF
Table of contents
Gallery
- The lens is CONTAX G HOLOGON 16mm.
- The film is Fuji Film PROVIA 400.
Review
The Hexar RF is a Leica M-mount compatible rangefinder film camera released by Konica in 1999.
At the time, I didn’t have the financial resources to buy a Leica M body for film, so I came up with an M-mount compatible film camera. Before this camera, I was using MINOLTA CLE, Rollei 35 RF (same as Bessa-R2), CONTAX G1/G2, etc.
Compared to the M-type Leica, the Hexar RF had a somewhat noisy shutter sound that divided people’s tastes, but it had many advantages such as a functional display in the viewfinder and electric automatic film winding.
The Hexer RF is a highly automated camera; the film spool does not require the user to insert the film into the gap, but rather the camera automatically winds the film into the initial position when the film is loaded into the camera.
At this time, the film is wound by the protrusions of the spool catching on the perforations (holes on both sides of the film) of the set film.
There is no problem if the film winds up and returns to its initial position when the back cover is closed, but the following may occur on rare occasions, so be careful.
When you set the film and close the back cover, if you repeatedly set the film with the protrusions on the spool misaligned with the perforations on the film, the protrusions on the spool will wear out due to interference between the spool and the film perforations.
As the spool protrusions wear out, the perforations of the film eventually roll idly without being caught on the spool protrusions, and the film is no longer wound up to its initial position. The first Hexer RF I used was fully automatic, so I kept loading the film and taking pictures without worrying too much about it, but the spool wore out and the film stopped winding up. Therefore, I once requested a repair to replace the spool.
This is because the protrusions on the spool are made of plastic, so it is true that they wear easily.
To minimize this wear, the user should tighten the camera back with the perforations of the film aligned with the protrusions on the spool when loading the film into the camera. And I think it is safe to use it so that the spool does not spin idle.
Hexar RF is already an old camera, and repair parts will not be available in 2024, so if you are purchasing a used one, you will need to check that the camera’s spool protrusion is not abnormally worn.
The camera’s viewfinder magnification is 0.6x, which makes the image small, so it’s a good camera to use with a lens with a focal length of 50mm or less. However, I was concerned about focusing accuracy when using a large F2 class lens with a long focal length of 75mm/90mm. Unlike digital cameras, the HEXAR RF cannot preview the shooting results and can only shoot with a limited number of films, so lenses with focal lengths over 50mm were rarely used.
The Zeiss Ikon (COSINA / released in 2005), which has a long baseline length and large magnification, is superior in viewfinder visibility and accuracy.
I purchased and used all the dedicated lenses except for the 21-35Dual. Both lenses are suitable for the word “simplicity and robustness,” and although they are not unique, they produce solid images.
The 21-35Dual is a bifocal lens, but the image quality is not optimized for each focal length, and the lens only uses both ends of the 1.5x zoom. I didn’t end up purchasing it because I heard that the distortion in the shooting results was also large. From 2000 to 2010, you could sometimes see them at prices close to 100,000 yen, but in the 2020s, you can often see used lenses priced above the list price, probably due to the small number of lenses in circulation.
仕様
| カメラ | Rollei 35 RF | Zeiss Ikon | HEXAR RF |
| Finder Mechanisim | Real-image reverse Galilean perspective finder | ← | ← |
| Viewfinder Magnification | x0.7 | x0.74 | x0.6 |
| Finder Frame | 40 / 50 / 80 | 28,85 / 35 / 50 | 28,90 / 35,135 / 50,75 |
| Baseline length(mm) | 37 | 75 | 69.2 |
| Effective baseline length(mm) | 25.9 | 55.5 | 41.5 |
| Shutter Mechanisim | Vertical travel laminar metal focal plane shutter | Electronically controlled vertically moving metal focal plane shutter | ← |
| Shutter speed(sec) | 1/2000〜1 | 1/2000〜1 | 1/4000〜16(Auto) 1/4000〜1(Manual) |
| Photometry method | Center weighted TTL average metering upon light depression of shutter release | ← | Shutter curtain, TTL direct metering |
| Battery | LR44/SR44 x2 | CR-1/3N x1 SR44 x2 LR44 x2 | CR2-3V x2 |
| Size(mm) W x H x D | 135.5 × 81 × 25.5〜33.5 | 138 × 77.5 × 32 | 139.5 × 80 × 35 |
| Weight(g) | 440 | 460 | 560 |
| Release date | 2002 (2006 sales end) | 2005.10 | Normal (1999.1） Limited（2001） |
Options
- Flash HX-18W
- Leather case
- Konica M mount lens
| Focal length | Lens name | Release date | Technical Report |
| 28mm | M-HEXANON f28 / F2.8 | 1999年 | 28/50/90mm-PDF |
| 50mm | M-HEXANON f50 / F2 | 1999年 | 28/50/90mm-PDF |
| 90mm | M-HEXANON f90 / F2.8 | 1999年 | 28/50/90mm-PDF |
| 35mm | M-HEXANON f35 / F2 | 2000年 | 35mm-PDF |
| 50mm | M-HEXANON f50 / F1.2 | 2001年 | 50mm/F1.2-PDF |
| 21-35mm | M-HEXANON f21-35 / F3.4-4 | 2002年 | 21-35mm-PDF |
Reference links
Update history
- 2024.05.18
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