The Foca brand
Foca was a French brand that existed from 1945 to 1965. It offered cameras for the general public, as well as models designed for professionals, such as the one presented in this article. Willy Ronis notably used some of the Foca PF series cameras.
An interesting lens
The optical formula of the Oplar 50mm F3.5 is a Tessar. I like this lens for its sharpness and its ability to produce « bright » images.
Few drawbacks
A specific obscure mount
What is unfortunate, however, is that its mount is not the standard LTM M39, but a screw mount with a smaller diameter specific to Foca lenses.
Therefore, this lens can only be used (in film photography) on cameras from the same brand.
There are currently no lens adaptor available.
Not the most pleasant camera to use
And these post-war cameras are rather impractical:
The viewfinders/rangefinders are narrow and offer no parallax correction, which is far from ideal for composing images. However, the convenience of having only one viewfinder for focusing and framing is a definite plus.
As the back and spool go off, changing film in the field isn’t the most convenient thing to do.
The shutter’s canvas curtains can also be damaged by humidity.
In addition, the shutter must be cocked before firing because the mechanism cannot withstand being held under tension for too long.
Likeable otherwise
As I mentioned earlier, these lenses deserve closer attention for the quality and character of their optics.
And beyond these shortcomings, they retain the main advantage of this type of camera: their portability.
The lens is retractable and the camera can fit in a pocket.
But at 550 grams, you’ll still need to be mindful of tightning your belt.
One response to “Foca PF2 and Oplar 50mm f3.5: the french version of Leica 39mm rangefinder”
[…] Foca rangefinder camera with its retracted lens, longer but thinner, would be more suitable if you want to slip a […]