>>3105593I own and love both and they are very different cameras. The 500c/m will be very familiar in many ways to someone coming from a 35mm SLR, while a TLR is not a rangefinder in any way, it is similar in that you are not looking through the taking lens and never get a preview of DOF. the SWC is a completely different animal, I have never owned one but plenty of friends have. The SWC is going to be mostly zone focus but then I think its infinity after 5 or 7 feet so that's not such a big deal.
I'll focus on the pros and cons of the rollei and 500c/m but try to fill in what I know of the SWC too. (I have also owned the Rolleiflex 3.5 75mm Planar)
Rolleiflex 3.5 75mm Tessar
Pros
-compact and light
-very nice lens (3.5 planar was a spectacular lens)
-intuitive to use
-the Rolleikin is neat if you want to shoot 35mm
-super quiet
-really nice to use
-ultimate 1 lens 1 camera experience (and its a really nice lens)
cons
-1 and only 1 lens per camera (but its a really nice lens)
-dark focusing screen and not interchangeable (at least not easily)
-f3.5 lens
-prone to vertical motion blur due to it's shape and lightness
-every asshole on the street will stop you to say "hey that's a really old camera, can you still get film for that?"
-delicate
-few repair facilities left and fewer parts
500c/m
pros
-modular (I have 2 backs 1 for B/W and 1 for colour this also allows for brighter or different focus screens and prisms)
-durable beast of a workhorse
-pretty good to fucking great lenses (the 80mm varies in quality significantly from "absolutely magical, it cant take a bad shot" to "why didn't I just get a Bronica")
-interchangeable lenses ( and good deals can be had)
-lots around and lots of people will still work on them though it may be cheaper to just replace the worn / broken bit
cons
-it's modular and worn out bits can make this a
nightmare.to make things worse everyone wants to pawn off their 2nd or 3rd body off on the newbie
to be continued
