Argus Mania

This is a post that I made on-line on NelsonFotoForums on August 31st 2006:

ARGUS MANIA

I recently became the proud owner of an Argus C-4, thanks to the generosity of a very good friend who said that I needed an American camera in my collection. How right he was! My Argus is fitted with the 50mm f2.8 coated Cintar lens and came complete with never-ready case. It has been CLA'd and is in superb condition - in fact there are no signs of use or wear on it at all. It was obviously well cared for. 

This is the camera:

The Argus C4 35mm rangefinder camera was made between 1951 and 1957 by the Argus Mfg Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. 

I hadn't finished unpacking it when my Best Beloved hauled me out the door for a four mile walk in the countryside. I hastily loaded the Argus with a roll of Fuji Superia 100 colour neg film and headed for the hills. These are some of the shots I took that evening. I have made no adjustment to any of these images apart from a slight crop on some where parallax caught me out, and a resize from 1800 ppx wide down to 960 ppx. I have not sharpened at all.

I love this camera. It has an honesty of design and construction that's hard to beat and it's a pleasure to use. The Cintar f2.8 gives superb negatives, and colour has nice contrast. It certainly performs way above the price bracket of the camera. So yes, now I know that they could make good cameras in the US of A!