Camera for street photography

I just discovered this forum 3 days ago after being a reader (mostly) of photo.net for little over a year. I am a great admirerer of the street photography pictures displayed, for instance:

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http://www.photo.net/photo/427313&size=lg

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007T0l

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005sdF

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I'd like to venture into this kind of photography and have a question regarding equipment. I already have an AF SLR outfit but find it too obtrusive and big to use for this. However I have no intention of investing in further cameras to try this out, so I was thinking of using one of my 70's rangefinders. Some of these have auto-exposure and some have shutter-prority, but what I need is actually aperture-priority, right?

<p>Kenneth,</p>

<p>You don't <em>need</em> aperture priority or anything else. I

often use my Voightlander which is manual mode only: pre-set the

distance and check the exposure reasonably frequently. Use

print-film, of course.

<p>That being said, I'd go for aperture-priority of full automatic if

I had to use my SLR.

Any camera that you're comfortable using should work well. I think

people notice your behavior more than they do on the kind of camera

that you use.

Thanks for the replies! I'll take one of the RF's and put a roll of

Tri-x in it and have a look at what I come by :-)

Thinking about street photography, if I ever really get into it, I

think I would take my first edition Yashica Electro and use that.

It's quiet and really doesn't look quite like a camera! I'm very

timid about this and just don't want to be noticed.

recently, ive been using a vivitar focus free

that i got in the salvation army for 1.50...

film costs more than the camera! :)

First of all, it was an honor to see one of my shots come up when I

looked at the three photographs you used as your examples. Thank you.

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As for my advice, just take that 70s rangefinder (whatever it may

be), load it with some Tri-X and go out and shoot.

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For what it's worth, I try to meter off of something "general" in the

area I'm shooting and then preset the focus for a distance I'm

feeling comfortable with that day, and shoot. The hardest part for me

is not feeling "obtrusive." Somedays I feel invisible, other days I

feel like everyone within a hyndred yards is staring at me.

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Good luck, enjoy, and post some results.

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David