Bessa R4A or R4M

Hi Peter

Yes I have experience with the R4A Bessa body. Cheap and comfortable to shoot with. I am using it as a second body to my M7. I use a 21mm Elmarit on it, its just fine. Not sure how durable it will be in the field, but its 1/6th the price of the M7. Feels very similar.

Hope that helps, email me directly if I can help more.

Cheers
Mike

Hi Peter

Yes I have experience with the R4A Bessa body. Cheap and comfortable to shoot with. I am using it as a second body to my M7. I use a 21mm Elmarit on it, its just fine. Not sure how durable it will be in the field, but its 1/6th the price of the M7. Feels very similar.

Hope that helps, email me directly if I can help more.

Cheers
Mike

I have a Bessa R2A, which is exactly the same camera as the Bessa R4A but with different framelines (35/50/75/90 instead of the R4A’s 21/25/35/50).

I’ve had it for over a year and it has stood up really well. It was dropped from waist height on to pavement and survived with nothing more than a few scuffs. I was worried the mechanics wouldn’t stand up to a hit like that but they did. No light leaks, the focus alignment and shutter speeds were all fine. It’s had more hits but that was the worst and it came out fine.

My Leica is much more solid feeling, but I trust the meter on the Bessa more and the Bessa shoots up to 1/2000th, a full stop faster than my M5 at 1/1000th.

For the most part my 35 is attached to my M5 and it’s what I shoot with 75% of the time. My 21mm and 75mm share time on the Bessa for the other 25%.