Looking for a film Rangfinder, very confused what to haunt for; help!

Back on the rangefinder trail. I'm about to send this lovely little camera off for a CLA and it occurred to me that it might fit the bill. It's the Minolta Minoltina "S", with an excellent 40mm Rokkor QF f/1.8 lens and a Seiko-SV shutter with speeds to 1/500th. It has a coupled selenium exposure meter with read-out on the deck, and a bright rangefinder coupled to unit focusing. It takes very good photographs, indeed.

Minoltina-S

The thing that many of these "really small" cameras seemed to lack in the old days was EITHER the rangefinder OR a meter. If it doesn't have a rangefinder, then despite the appearance, it's not a rangefinder, right? If it doesn't have a meter, there are workarounds (such as the Voigtlander clip on meter) but that is expensive and works against fitting in a pocket. I was never successful at guessing exposure reliably OR in guessing range. Yes I can scale focus, especially with a really wideangle lens, but I'm usually not satisfied with the sharpness.

There are metering apps that run on smartphones. They are perfectly fine for negative film, but I tend to use a spot meter for slides.

Nooreziki said

 

That stipulation seems to rule out many of the cameras suggested above. From my limited experience I'd suggest the Olympus XA (aperture priority) or the very fine Agfa Optima Sensor 1535 (auto electronic shutter).

I totally agree with Rick.

The Olympus XA has an excellent lens, is reliable and should be well within your price range.

I have bought way too many cameras, including some popular rangefinders, from Goodwill auctions.

Picking them up at the store saves on shipping, though it might not be all that much for many

good rangefinders.

I have a Canon P, FED 2, and Zorki V, at low enough prices that I wouldn't feel so

bad if one didn't work. The rangefinder calibration on the Zorki is pretty far off, and

I haven't tried at all to fix it, but otherwise it seems to work fine.