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simonhawketts · 5 years

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This post describes a medium format, folding camera made by Ihagee (later Exakta) in the mid 1930s. The Ihagee Ultrix takes 8 pictures of 6cm x 9cm on 120 format film, has adjustable focus and is fitted with an 8 speed Compur shutter.

Ihagee Ultrix Images

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Front view

Side view showing Struts and viewfinders

Side view showing struts

Compur 8 speed shutter

Landscape mode with viewer open

Rear view showing film counter

Rear view with film chamber open

Empty film chamber

Empty roll ready for loading

Loading with film

Side view

My Ultrix Camera

My camera, along with so many in my vintage camera collection, was an ebay purchase. In this case I paid £15 and bought it because it is a camera which produces large, and therefore more detailed, negatives.

When I received it I had to do a little cleaning up of the camera covering and chrome work, but the bellows and shutter seem to be in good working order and for a camera of probably 80 years or more age it is in good condition.

Ihagee Ultrix Description

As I said above the Ultrix is a medium format camera which takes 8 pictures of 6cm x 9cm.

At the time it was made in the mid 1930s it was common for users of the camera to rely on contact prints, i.e. a picture the same size as the negative, rather than enlargements, so the negative size directly related to the size of the pictures the camera produced. Therefore, although the number of pictures is reduced, having larger pictures would have been one of the selling points of this camera. Also, being a folding camera makes the unit quite small to carry around which would have been another selling point.

Compur 8 speed shutter

On the photographic side, the camera has a Compur shutter with speeds of 1/250 sec up to 1sec along with bulb and time settings.

The aperture can be adjusted from f/4.5 to f/22 and the lens is a 105mm Ihagee Sol Anastigmat.

On the top of the shutter is a hole which the eBay seller said should have a lever to set a self timer, but that is only partially correct. Reading through the manual (linked below) suggests that the time delay was an option and not all cameras were fitted with it.

Something which sets this camera aside from most folders I’ve seen is the focusing arrangements. Normally the front element of the lens is rotated against a scale to set the focus, but this camera has a focus helicoid which moves the whole shutter assembly back and forth. There is a lever at the top of the shutter with a scale marked in feet meaning the photographer can see the focus scale from the top of the unit when looking down on it. To my mind this is a better arrangement than the front lens option, but I notice the threads of the helicoid are exposed as the focus is adjusted so I wonder how many Ultrix ended up with dirt in the focus?

To frame pictures there is both a collapsible frame on the top of the camera and a rotatable viewer mounted on the front of the unit. In common with every other front mounted viewer I’ve ever seen I find it impossible to see anything in the rotatable viewer. Perhaps there is a knack to using them but more probably my eyesight is just not good enough anymore.

I have loaded my copy of the camera with a roll of HP5+ film and when I have taken all the pictures I’ll add them to this site to provide some samples of what sort of pictures the Ultrix is capable of.

Ihagee Ultrix Specifications

Ihagee Ultrix medium format camera

8 exposures of 6cm x 9cm on 120 format film

Manually cocked Compur shutter with speeds 1 sec to 1/250sec + B & T

Cable release socket

Helicoid focusing

f/4.5 to f/22 aperture

105mm Ihagee Sol Anastigmat lens

Table stand and tripod bush

Optional time delay – not fitted on my camera

Collapsible viewing frame and rotatable viewfinder

Quick release button for bellows

Frames counted with film backing paper

Shutter Serial No: 3577911

Manual available on-line here.

Ihagee Ultrix folding camera This post describes a medium format, folding camera made by Ihagee (later Exakta) in the mid 1930s.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: With a Wall of Photos, Bernadette Mayer Evokes a Landscape of Memories

Bernadette Mayer, Memory, installation view (photo courtesy of CANADA, LLC)

Bernadette Mayer’s Memory, now on view at CANADA gallery, was originally shown at Holly Solomon’s performance space in 1972. Mayer shot a roll of 35 mm slide film each day for a month, in July of 1971. For each roll of film she created a diary entry. She made snapshots from the slides and displayed them unedited in a large block and read the entire diary aloud recording it on tape. The installation at CANADA shows all 1,100 images with the recording functioning as a score.

The images are faded, much like the ones you find in a shoe box in your mother or grandmother’s attic, with yellowing edges that tuck into the traditional stick-on photo corners meant for an album or scrapbook. At first glance the installation is one massive abstract grid and it’s difficult to focus on any one image. I wander along in front of this wall of images and then, to my amazement, I see someone familiar.

Single photo detail, Memory (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

The man in the photograph looks like Dennis Budrick, someone I last saw when he looked about the same age. He is not Dennis, but the resemblance is striking: a skinny boy with long, brown hair and a cigarette in his mouth. Suddenly, I can see all of us — Dennis, me, my cousin, her boyfriend Scott — lying on her front lawn, stoned, staring up at the clouds. A short way off, in the neighbors driveway, moving men are loading a large truck. My cousin’s parents are away and we are free to do as we please. Our sole task is to watch her maternal grandfather, a tiny patrician man born in the 19th century, who had a white, waxed, handlebar mustache, was maybe five feet tall, never appeared outside his bedroom without a suit jacket on, and looked so brittle I always feared he would snap like a dried out twig.

Bliss. Days were spent watching the moving men and lying about in the grass in a state of oblivion. My cousin mentioned at some point that the neighbors had been there a long time and never even mentioned they were leaving. When her parents got back we discovered that the neighbors were on vacation too, and we had watched for days in broad daylight all of their belongings being packed into a truck and stolen by thieves. The house was completely empty. Not even a roll of toilet paper remained.

Single photo detail, Memory (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

At first, Mayer’s words are as hard to distinguish from one another as are her images. Listening to them is akin to adjusting ones eyes to the dark. Somewhere in her text she remarks: “I say I don’t remember this day at all and these pictures I can’t remember.”

The first car I ever drove was a ‘66 gold Dodge Dart. It belonged to my mother. I had a weekend job at Rockland State Hospital and I was always running late to work. In those days, in the winter, you had to warm a car up before driving it and I never had the time or patience. One morning while speeding along the Palisades Parkway a pounding noise began to rattle the car so hard I thought it might explode. Then the engine cut off and I was coasting. I’d thrown a rod. I was late for Jimmy Maloney, who wore a football helmet 24 hours a day and who banged his head against walls and even his own shoulders so vehemently that he sported the cauliflower ears of a true boxing champ; late for Andy, the tallest boy on the ward across the hall, who painted pictures on the wall with his feces and whose father was a doctor at the hospital who never once visited him; late for Macmillan, who greeted my entry on the ward every time I came in with, “Miss Silas, this is your lucky day.”

Single photo detail, Memory (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Bill worked at Rockland State too. That’s how I met him. He drove a green MGBT. He once left it broken down at the bottom of my mother’s driveway for a week. That was hard to explain. Mayer says: “The whole world doesn’t exist for him he’s a monster without tails.” Pretty accurate. He worked as an attendant on the psych ward across the hall. He was handsome in a sloppy way and wore a black eye-patch over one eye like a pirate. When he was tired, he would check himself into the adult ward at the hospital, his Nurse Ratched keys to the children’s ward temporarily checked like a policeman’s gun upon entering a courtroom. He seemed to enjoy himself there on a Thorazine-assisted holiday.

Mayer’s photograph is beautiful. The image was taken somewhere suburban. What looks like a green MG to me, is on the road passing a white, wood frame house with dark shutters that has a small outbuilding one-car garage. An elongated, brown station wagon is parked at the end of the driveway. It looks so time specific. Of course, the cars contribute to that, but so does the quality and resolution of the photograph, its modest scale, the way it has faded over time.

Single photo detail, Memory (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

In my last year of high school, the gold Dodge Dart blown, my mother picked up a black Cadillac at an estate sale. I think it was a ’67. It was the most magnificent object I had ever laid eyes upon. It had belonged to an elderly woman who never drove it. It might have had 15,000 miles on it, if that. Unlike Mayer’s Cadillac it was a hardtop. The seats were black fabric but the edges of each seat were lined in white leather with a thin band of white leather piping where white met black. It had a very large diameter steering wheel that looked like a jewel and felt in ones hands like the reigns of a magical steed. The steering wheel too was black and white and the white portions were opalescent. I had a long black raincoat, which I donned to drive this enormous car. I never felt so glamorous as I did when I swung the door to that car open and stepped out of it.

And there was one other Cadillac of that vintage in my life back then. It was bright pink with a white convertible top. It was driven by an attendant at Rockland State Hospital, the man who ran the numbers. He was Hispanic and always wore a white jumpsuit and a hat. He was easy to spot driving through the grounds, collecting chits of paper with bets on them, and on occasion delivering money to some lucky sap whose numbers hit. As soon as someone eyed that car everyone instinctively ran to the windows to watch him drive by.

Single photo detail, Memory (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

The Wikipedia entry on Maxwell’s Plum reads:

Maxwell’s Plum was a “flamboyant restaurant and singles bar that, more than any place of its kind, symbolized two social revolutions of the 1960’s — sex and food,” at 1181 First Avenue (64th and 1st Avenue) in Manhattan. Owned by Warner LeRoy, it closed abruptly on July 10, 1988.

To this day, on the rare occasions when I find myself on the Upper East Side, a part of me still looks for that red awning — not that I frequented the place often. A friend’s much older boyfriend was a waiter there. I remember sitting off to the side of the action one night, watching Rex Harrison, seated at a choice table, with a woman whom we suspected of being a paid escort. She was heavily made up and her hairdo, makeup, and clothing suggested she had just finished modeling for Velázquez. Richard Burton had quite a bit to say in his diaries about Harrison’s various female consorts, but prior to that moment, the only consort I had imagined him with was Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

Single photo detail, Memory. Image by the author.

I arrived at Reed College in 1971. The school had a basement poolroom. I spent way too much time there trying to learn to play and watching two people who nearly made a living playing pool. One was Mark, an African-American student, very petite and fine boned, who drove an old Jaguar convertible to school, and the other was John, a tall, working class history professor, who was hoping for tenure. This was where I learned about Willie Mosconi and where I learned about keeping your cards close to your chest. I went to college to meet talented pool hustlers. What I knew about pool up to that point I learned from Fast Eddie Felson and Minnesota Fats. Fast Eddie, played in The Hustler by the screen idol Paul Newman, was especially beloved in my family for being part Jewish. And then there was Jackie Gleason, who reputedly played his own game for the film.

Mark graduated and he and the beautiful, old, white Jag with the red leather interior moved on and I have no idea what became of him. John didn’t get tenure and began hustling in Portland trying to figure out what to do next. He was smart and capable, so I never knew whether he lost out on the tenure offer because he was working class. Maybe word got out that he could take the best players at all the local pubs and pool halls, something the stuffy Reed history faculty would surely have frowned upon. In a prior tenure meeting a brilliant and much loved faculty member was reproved and voted against because he was caught having sex with a male student in his car. When a fellow faculty member, and the only vote in favor of tenure (and the source of this savory tidbit) in the history department pointed out to the chair that he too had been caught once having sex in a car with a student, the chair turned beet red and bellowed, “But that was a girl!”

Bernadette Mayer, Memory, detail (image courtesy of CANADA gallery, LLC)

What has all this to do with Bernadette Mayer? It wouldn’t normally occur to me to review an exhibition by regaling the reader with personal memories — not exactly a review. But what I found extraordinary about this show was the degree to which it got me thinking about things I hadn’t thought about in a very long time, things connected with roughly the same period Mayer documents. The events I describe took place between 1969 and 1972.

There is something exacting and precise about this installation and I am tied to the time it was made. Her writing has a certain style, short on punctuation and long on ampersands. And of course there is the photography itself. One of its significant attributes is that it can show us what something used to look like, something that has vanished, or taken place elsewhere, or grown and changed — the “what it used to look like” effect. Mayer created a series of photographs that make no attempt at being artful or formally beautiful. There is no sense that each roll is somehow a preplanned narrative. It feels very much like the document of a moment. The text is not a caption but functions as a layer of memory about the images. She recounts her day to herself in her diary after she had shot the roll of film. She doesn’t actually see the images again until the end of the month. This lag between shooting and developing has disappeared with digital photography. But for Mayer, by the time she sees her images, her memory of what she shot may have changed too. It’s a month since the first roll. She even edits her text once she sees the images.

And then I walk into the gallery, with my life and baggage. I am younger than Mayer, but not by a lot. So what is depicted is part of the landscape of memory for me too. And it’s so very particular. Instead of thinking about the show critically, I am swept up in the tailwind of it and I end up creating a new layer of memory that rests on top of what she has given, and I suspect that this can only happen to those for whom these images exist in direct correlation with experience. In other words, if you weren’t yet born in 1971, it is a question what happens when you enter this show and look at this installation and hear Mayer’s comforting and confident voice. Truthfully, I have no idea. It was far too evocative of my own history for me to step back and see it “objectively.” For me, this exhibition was a real gift of memory.

Bernadette Mayer’s Memory, continues on view at CANADA gallery (333 Broome Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through October 8.

The post With a Wall of Photos, Bernadette Mayer Evokes a Landscape of Memories appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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simonhawketts · 6 years

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This is a short pictorial post describing the Kodak Retinette type 22, 35mm, viewfinder camera which was made by Kodak between the years 1954 and 1958.

Kodak Retinette type 22 Images.

Front view

Side view showing flash sync

Side view

Bottom view showing film advance

Top View

Top View showing exposure settings

Film chamber

Top view

Schneider – Kreuznach Reomar 45mm f/3.5 lens

My Kodak Retinette type 22 camera

As with many of my camera collection, this was purchased from eBay as a non-working vintage camera, but unlike many of them there isn’t much wrong with this unit except for a problem with the back film chamber door which doesn’t lock.

Ok, I suppose that could be seen as a fairly major problem because you can’t use the camera with the door open, but I suspect it can be repaired fairly easily – is simply seems to be that the door catch doesn’t quite drop far enough down to latch the door. It probably needs a clean and I suspect it will be fine.

Talking of cleaning, that is another thing the whole camera needs – most of the bright work and folds in the casing metalwork are ingraned with the dirt from the 60 or so years since it was made.

Kodak Retinette type 22 Description

The Kodak Retinette type 22 is a ‘little sister’ to the Kodak Retina cameras which Kodak made from the mid 1930s up until the late 1960s.

Initially the Retinette series followed the same folding, bellows design that the majority of the Retina cameras had, but this model, the type 22, was the first Retinette to move to a solid body single piece design – a move which later the Retina cameras followed.

The Retinette series were aimed at people who wanted a good camera which was reliable and would take good pictures, but wanted to pay a bit less than the top flight cameras of the day. I guess you could call them a ‘good snapshot’ camera. This model has a good range of shutter speeds for a camera of its vintage and, in common with many of its cousins in the Kodak stable, a very good lens.

Exposure system

Side view showing flash sync and EV markings

The exposure system on the Retinette type 22 is based on the EV system, which was a popular option in the mid 1950s. It works on the premise that once you know the amount of light required for the film you are using, you can achieve it with several combinations of aperture and shutter speed. For example if the correct exposure is 1/250 sec at f/8 you can also get the same exposure by setting the speed one stop down and the aperture one stop up i.e. 1/500 sec at f/5.6.

This theory was used to calculate an EV or Exposure Value number and the EV number was engraved on the camera shutter. A light meter was used to measure the light which was a simple number and the camera set to this number. Then the aperture and shutter were locked together and could be rotated by the photographer to get the artistic effect they were after; faster speed to freeze action, wider aperture to blur the background or smaller aperture to keep everything in focus.

It’s a good system and continues to this day with Program Shift which is the modern invocation of the theory.

Film Advance

In common with many cameras in the Kodak range, the film advance is fitted to the bottom of the camera rather than the top. This is quite convenient in use but in my experience of fixing a couple of the Kodak series, it makes the camera more complex and more difficult to repair when it goes wrong.

The frame counter is on the top of the camera above the film advance lever. It’s a count down unit and doesn’t automatically reset so the photographer needed to set the counter to the number of exposures of the film loaded into the camera. When the film advance is used, the counter then shows the number of exposures remaining.

Other features.

There is a film type reminder fitted to the top of the film rewind shaft, a flash sync socket mounted on the front panel and, in common with many of the Retina and Retinette series, an unlock button on the top panel for occassions when you want to change the film mid-roll. This button disengages the film lock allowing the film advance to wind the camera on without cocking the shutter therefore allowing you to advance a film to a point mid-roll.

Kodak Retinette type 22 Specifications

35mm viewfinder camera

Compur rapid shutter

Shutter speeds 1 sec to 1/500 sec + bulb

Schneider – Kreuznach Reomar 45mm f/3.5 lens

Aperture f/3.5 to f/16

Film release button to allow mid-roll film changing

Approx 10 sec Self timer

Flash sync socket

Cold accessory shoe

Film Type reminder on rewind crank

Bottom mounted film advance

Auto frame counter

EV exposure control

Tripod mount

Back door release on base of camera

Manual focus with distance engraved in feet

Body Ser No 910946

Kodak Retinette type 22 This is a short pictorial post describing the Kodak Retinette type 22, 35mm, viewfinder camera which was made by Kodak between the years 1954 and 1958.

#35mm film camera #fixed lens

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simonhawketts · 6 years

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This is a review and description of a Rodenstock folding camera which I recently bought from eBay UK. Rodenstock has a good reputation for producing lenses, being the original manufacturers of some of the lenses in the Kodak Retina series of cameras, but this is the first camera I’ve seen made by the company.

Rodenstock Folding Camera Images

Rodenstock Folding Camera front view

Rodenstock Folding Camera side / bottom view

Rodenstock Folding Camera side / top view

Rodenstock Folding Camera – view of pronto shutter

Rodenstock Folding Camera – view focus setting

Rodenstock Folding Camera – frame viewfinder

Rodenstock Folding Camera – bottom of camera

Rodenstock Folding Camera – in landscape mode

Rodenstock Folding Camera – film chamber

Rodenstock Folding Camera – film spool

My Rodenstock Folding Camera

This is the third folding camera I’ve bought in the last few weeks. The other two were a Voigtlander Bessa and a Butchers which are iconic makes, and this camera, being a Rodenstock makes it a trio of famous manufacturers.

I assumed that since Rodenstock are famous for making lenses rather than cameras it should be relatively easy to find the model with a quick internet search, but I couldn’t find any reference to any models they made, so I don’t actually know which model this unit is.

It does seem to be in good order though, with light tight bellows and back film door as far as I can see. The shutter certainly works at all speeds, although the self timer is a bit reluctant to run down and needs to be helped a bit.

The general cosmetic condition is pretty good considering the camera’s age which, although I don’t know the model and therefore can’t be certain, I would think would be between 1920 and 1935.

Rodenstock Folding Camera Description

The general construction of this Rodenstock folding camera is similar to many other cameras of the same era. The body of the camera is a light tight box which holds the two film reels and allows the film to be drawn across the back of the camera. At the front is a fold down flap which, when it is opened, pulls the shutter assembly out on a set of expandable bellows. Using this construction a lens with the right focal length to create the correct size image can be fitted in a camera which is much smaller than would otherwise be possible.

Rodenstock Folding Camera – view focus setting

One way this camera differs from many folding cameras is in the focusing arrangements. Normally the focus is set by turning the front lens element but in this camera the whole of the lens / shutter assembly is moved in and out by way of a lever assembly at the front of the camera. This lever has a scale written next to it which allows the photographer to set the distance. There is no rangefinder or other aid to measure the distance to the subject, but I suspect photographers became good at estimating distances when they needed to regularly do it.

The settings for the exposure are set with the aperture and shutter speed levers and these are also on the front of the shutter assembly. The aperture setting is adjusted with a lever on the bottom of the shutter and can be set between f/5.6 to f/36. The shutter is a Pronto model and the shutter speed is set with a rotary control positioned at the top of the shutter. There are only a limited number of speeds available – 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and bulb + time.

Other options available on the shutter are a threaded cable release socket and a self timer lever.

To compose the picture there are, in common with many folder cameras, two viewfinder options. A small viewfinder is fitted to the shutter which can be turned to either landscape or portrait orientation and a frame finder is fitted to the top of the camera with a fold up framing square.

Inside the camera body, the film chamber has protective shields which hold the film rolls in place which need to be swung up out of the body to load the film. Presumably the shields are to ensure the film is held securely wound and therefore light tight when the film is removed from the camera.

Rodenstock Folding Camera – frame viewfinder

The most noticeable oddity regarding the film loading is the fact that there are two frame number apertures in the back panel and they are in-line.

It’s not unusual for medium format cameras to have multiple frame number holes, but they are normally in different vertical positions and are for cameras which can take different numbers of pictures.

For example, if the camera takes 16 pictures of 4.5cm x 6cm the camera will use one set of numbers on the film packing paper, or if it takes 12 pictures of 6xm x 6cm it will use a different set. Therefore cameras which can take either format will have two sets of holes in different vertical alignment. On this camera however the two holes are in-line and I can’t think why this would be – if anyone knows the reason for this I’d be interested to hear.

I now have a number of large negative, medium format cameras and I’m going to try a roll of film through one of them to see what sort of results they are capable of. With a Rodenstock lens, this camera may well be a good candidate for that test.

Rodenstock Folding Camera Specification

Large negative, medium format camera which takes 120 film

8 pictures of 6cm x 9cm

Quick release front lens door

Self cocking Pronto shutter

Shutter speeds 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 + Bulb & Time

Mechanical Self timer

Cable release socket on shutter

Portrait / Landscape viewfinder & frame finder

Front focus adjuster

Aperture f/5.6 to f/36

Rodenstock Trinar Anastigmat 105mm f/5.6

Fold down support strut

Tripod on front door and camera bottom

Rodenstock folding camera This is a review and description of a Rodenstock folding camera which I recently bought from eBay UK.

#120 film #medium format #pronto shutter

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simonhawketts · 7 years

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This is a look at a Voigtlander Bessa folding camera which was made in about 1930-34 and takes 8 large negatives on a roll of 120 format film.

Voigtlander Bessa front view

Voigtlander Bessa rear view

Voigtlander Bessa unfolded

Voigtlander Bessa Anastigmat Voigtar 7.7

Voigtlander Bessa viewfinder

Voigtlander Bessa film winder

Voigtlander Bessa film roll winder

Voigtlander Bessa film roll holder

Voigtlander Bessa film chamber

Voigtlander Bessa front release

Voigtlander Bessa shutter

Voigtlander Bessa shutter settings

Voigtlander Bessa focus and aperture settings

Voigtlander Bessa leather case

My Voigtlander Bessa camera

Voigtlander Bessa unfolded

This camera was another eBay purchase although it was a little bit of a blind purchase because the seller described the camera simply as ‘old camera’ and only included two pictures of if. Since both the pictures were fuzzy and indistinct, I couldn’t really make out what the camera make or model was – hence the blind purchase. Still, it was on sale with a starting price of only a couple of pounds, and in the end I picked it up for £9.60.

When I received it I found it a medium spec., clean camera, with a good quality leather case. The only mechanical issue was the shutter speed dial, which was up agains the viewfinder and couldn’t be set the the T position. This was just because the shutter had turned at some point and could be easily fixed by slightly loosening the lens and straightening it.

With that small problem solved, the rest of the camera looks in mostly good shape with light tight bellows, accurate sounding shutter and smooth focus – the lens does look a bit cloudy but that may clean up without too much trouble.

Voigtlander Bessa Description

The Bessa series was produced by Voigtlander for a long time and took many different forms. I have another in the series, which is a smaller 6×6 camera, but this is the first I have which uses the larger 6×9 format.

The camera which features in this post is one of the earlier examples of the Bessa, and quite a low spec camera for a voigtlander, having only three aperture settings and 3 shutter speeds.

I believe it was made in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and follows the classic design for a medium format folding camera of that age.

The body is made of thin sheet steel with a back which opens to allow the film to be fitted. Each of the film roll holders are designed to allow easy fitting of the film by way of the bottom holder pulling down giving more room for the roll. In the back of the camera there is a hole stamped with a red plastic window fitted which acts as the frame counter – the 120 roll film has frame numbers printed on the backing paper which appear beneath the hole in the back of the camera. It has red plastic because at the time the camera was made film was insensitive to red light and therefore a red window meant it didn’t matter if a little light entered the back. (Fortunately the backing paper is completely light proof, so even today’s colour film can be used in these style cameras without fogging.

On the front of the camera is a door which is released with a small button next to the film wind key. It is a sprung loaded door, so when the button is pressed the door snaps open and the lens and shutter assembly pops out on the expanding bellows. When the door is pulled down fully, it locks in place and the bellows are fully extended. This is the normal ‘taking’ position for the camera.

Voigtlander Bessa shutter settings

The shutter fitted has a ‘voigtlander’ name plate but is almost certainly actually made by Compur, Prontor or one of the other famous shutter manufacturers for voigtlander. It has 3 speeds, as I said above, 1/25, 1/50 & 1/100 plus bulb and time and these are set with a round shutter speed dial mounted on the top of the lens/shutter assembly. The shutter release is mounted on the side of the shutter assembly, is a self cocking design and has a cable release socket mounted behind it. With the sort of shutter speeds used with the slow film of the day, it was quite usual to fit a cable release and use a tripod when taking pictures.

Along with the shutter speeds, the other part of the exposure setting, the aperture, is set with a lever at the bottom of the shutter and also has three settings, f/7.7, f/11 and f/22 although without click stops.

The focus is set by turning the lens and it has a scale calibrated in both meters and with three scene settings, landscape, group and portrait (although written in German).

To compose the scene there is a brilliant finder fitted to the top of the shutter which can be rotated to both landscape or portrait orientation, although in common with most of these types of viewfinder they are pretty difficult to see anything through!

Voigtlander Bessa Anastigmat Voigtar 7.7

The lens fitted to my example of this camera is a Voigtlander Voigtar f/7.7 lens which is not actually marked with its focal length, but considering the size of the negative produced I would think it is probably about 110mm. I seems there was another version of the camera available with a slightly faster f/6.3 lens – that is the version shown in the manual I’ve linked to below because I couldn’t find a manual for the f/7.7 version.

Although the lens looks a bit cloudy, I might put a roll of HP5 through this camera to see what sort of results it is capable of because a negative of 6×9 should be pretty good.

Voigtlander Bessa Specification

120 format roll film folding camera

8 pictures of 6cm x 9cm

Shutter speeds 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 + bulb & time

Aperture f/7.7 to f/22 without click stops

Manual focus + scene guides

Cable release thread

Viewfinder rotatable to portrait or landscape

Spring loaded foot support

Tripod thread on top and front

Manual for Bessa f/6.3 available on-line here

Voigtlander Bessa f/7.7 folding camera This is a look at a Voigtlander Bessa folding camera which was made in about 1930-34 and takes 8 large negatives on a roll of 120 format film.

#film #manual focus #medium format #voigtlander bessa

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simonhawketts · 7 years

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The Agfa Karat IV was the final iteration of the Karat design and probably the most impressive of the line up. The cartridge film system of the early models was dropped in favour of the standard 35mm film cassette, and the Compur shutter replaced with a Prontor-SVS shutter. The camera still retained some of the best features of the Karat series however, such as the collapsing lens system, relatively small body size and improved rangefinder.

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – front view with lens collapsed

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – front view with lens extended

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – side view

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – side view showing lens release

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – top of camera

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – focusing scale and depth of field guide

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – back of camera

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – bottom of camera

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – Film chamber

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – Damage to film pressure plate

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera – Agfa Solinar 50mm f/2.8 lens

These pictures can be viewed full sized here.

My Camera

I bought this camera in an auction on eBay. One of the problems with the Karat series and the IV variant in particular, is that they can fetch a high price; I’ve seen ‘buy it now’ offers for up to £200 which is simply ridiculous. Many of these cameras are described as ‘fully working’ (which I would probably take with a pinch of salt anyway), but even so there is no reason why a mass produced camera from Agfa should cost that much. I was therefore attracted to this example because it was in an auction starting at £4.99 and I managed to secure it for a touch under £17 which I consider a fair price.

In the seller’s description the camera was listed as not working, and when I received it a few days after the auction I confirmed that was the case. The winding mechanism was locked and the focus control difficult to move.

The winding mechanism was a simple fix – I just opened the back of the camera and moved the film transport barrel with my fingers, and the mechanism sorted itself out and would then work. However, I then found that although I could move the film transport, the shutter itself didn’t fire. I could see the cocking shaft turning so I thought that the shutter itself was locked. Interestingly, the self-timer was set when I received the camera, so the most likely problem was that the self timer was wound up but won’t wind down and therefore the shutter was held locked. I’ll need to get the shutter off the camera to look at that, but, assuming it is similar to the Karat 12, that should be relatively easy.

The focus stiffness is a common problem with the Karat series – the grease which was used originally in the factory freezes up after 50 or so years and needs to be removed and replaced with a modern grease. That’s a job I’ve had to do on all my Karats and again is relatively easy.

Other than the problems listed, the general cosmetic condition is really good with just a bit of paint loss on the back door and a slight issue with the film pressure plate. It has become dislodged at some point in the camera’s life, and has fouled the sprocket which has left it scratched. I hope I can clean it down and re-paint it although as long as it is smooth it shouldn’t affect anything if it is left with the paint damaged.

Agfa Karat IV Description

The Karat IV is a well engineered camera with a feature set similar to the Kodak Retina series, and was aimed at the advanced snapshot / amateur photographer who might otherwise be tempted by the Kodak camera. It was a bit less expensive than the Retina, but had a slight disadvantage in that the lens was fixed, whereas some of the more expensive Retina series had replaceable lenses. In design, it is a very similar camera, with bellows which allows the camera to be collapsed to a smaller size but expanded when required to be ready for immediate use.

The main difference between the Karat IV and the other Karat cameras in my collection is that the IV model uses 35mm film in standard cassettes instead of the Karat cartridge that the earlier cameras used. This obviously makes the camera much more usable today, and this could be one reason why the camera is generally more expensive than the other models in the series.

The Karat IV is physically bigger and heavier than the earlier f/3.5 models and slightly bigger than the Karat 12 model. However, it is still a fairly handy size because the earlier models were really miniature cameras, but it wouldn’t be quite as easy to fit into a coat pocket as the earlier models.

The focus is achieved by way of a coupled rangefinder, as with the Karat 12, but the IV has a more conventional superimposed image design rather than the split image design of the earlier model. Personally, although I like split image designs on SLR cameras where they form the centre portion of the viewfinder, I like the superimposed design of the IV better than the model 12. It is nice and bright and although the focus control is difficult to move at the moment, once it has been cleaned up I think it will be easier to use.

The shutter is a self cocking design on the IV which is obviously much easier to use than having to remember to cock the shutter manually and there is an interlock to stop multiple exposures and to stop missed pictures by double winding the film. At the time this camera was made, in the early to mid 1950s, that was really a requirement since lots of other camera manufacturers has started adding those sort of features to their cameras.

The film transport uses the same slightly odd ‘front to back’ action that the model 12 uses, which actually grows on you as you get used to it.

The lens fitted to my example is the Agfa Solinar 50mm f/2.8 unit which is supposed to be a reasonable quality lens although not the best lens available because as well as this lens, other versions were available with a Rodenstock f/2 lens, a Xenon f/2 and an Agfa Soligor lens.

I have a bit of work to do on my example to bring it up to scratch, but once it is fully working I will post some sample pictures I’ve taken with it.

Agfa Karat IV Description

Agfa Karat 35mm rangefinder camera

Collapsible front standard to reduce size

Coupled rangefinder with overlap display

Film advance coupled to shutter cocking

Prontor SVS shutter

1sec to 1/300sec + bulb

Solinar 50mm f/2.8 lens

Aperture f/2.8 to f/16

Depth of field scale

‘Front to Back’ film transport

Manually settable frame counter

Film type reminder

Standard 35mm film cassette

Manual available on-line here.

Agfa Karat IV 35mm rangefinder camera The Agfa Karat IV was the final iteration of the Karat design and probably the most impressive of the line up.

#35mm #Agfa #film #karat IV #photography #prontor svs #Rangefinder #vintage camera

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simonhawketts · 7 years

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The Voigtlander Vito is a 35mm folding camera fitted with a Prontor II shutter, a Voigtlander Skopar 50mm f/3.5 lens and was made just after the second world war in about 1947.

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – front view with lens collapsed

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – front view with lens extended

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – focus, shutter and aperture

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – self timer lever

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – shutter release built into lens cover

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – top view showing controls

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – side view showing lens extended

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – back door with door closed

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera – back of camera with door open and lens out

My Camera

I bought this camera from ebay for about £5 which is a reasonably good price to acquire a Voigtlander.

I think the reasons the camera didn’t make more were because the seller described it as an ‘old camera’ and not a ‘Voigtlander camera’, and also because the postage charge was £7-50 which is too much for a single camera. Just as an aside, I don’t think sellers really win when they set unrealistic postal charges; In this case a Voigtlander Vito would probably make £25 to £35 if it was properly described and had a reasonable postage charge, but in this case I limited my max bid to £8.96 because I factored in the postage, and won the camera for £5.23. As it happened, the camera turned up in a large cardboard envelope, wrapped in a single couple of layers of bubble wrap and with a £3-40 stamp.

That aside, the unit seemed to be in pretty good shape. The only mechanical issue is with the slow shutter speeds and the self timer which seem to be a bit sluggish – that’s to be expected really for a camera which is 70 years old, and is probably a relatively simple job to fix. Most importantly, the bellows seem to be in good condition so the camera seems to be light tight.

Cosmetically there is not much wrong that a good clean and brush up won’t fix, although the mechanisms like the door clamp and the lens cover could probably do with some lubrication.

One oddity with my example is the accessory shoe fitted over the viewfinder. As far as I can tell the Vito didn’t have an accessory shoe but this one seems to be bolted quite firmly, so I think this is a hand mod that a previous owner has carried out.

Voigtlander Vito Description

The Voigltander Vito was the first in a long line of cameras which bore the Vito name, although not all were folding cameras.

One of the most obvious advantages of a folding model is the small size, and the Vito is no exception being only about 4 inches long, 2 inches high and about an inch deep when the lens is folded in. This makes it quite easy to slip into a jacket or coat pocket and have available with you at all times. When the lens is popped out, by pressing the small button on the bottom, the depth increases to about 2 1/2 inches, meaning it is still quite small and convenient.

This first model Vito has a film take up reel fitted, but it is removable meaning an empty 35mm film canister could be fitted in its place and the film could then be transported from one canister to another. The advantage of that would be that if the camera back were to be opened, the exposed film would be protected.

The film needs to be fitted to the camera for the shutter to properly fire because the multiple exposure prevention mechanism is set by the rotation of the film guide roller in the camera. I could simulate winding the film on with the camera back open and turning the rollers to check the camera is working, but for normal operation the film needs to be present.

The shutter fitted is a Prontor II unit which has a range of speeds from 1 sec to 1/200, a bulb position and a self timer. The 50mm f/3.5 lens is a Voigtlander Skopar which has good a reputation and was fitted to many of Voigtlander’s cameras for many years. Later versions of the lens had coatings to correct the lens for colour photography, but the version fitted to this camera is not ‘colour corrected’ – probably in 1947 not many people used colour film. The shutter release has an interesting arrangement – it consists of a bar at the top of the lens cover which folds into the top of the cover as it is shut, and pops up when the case is opened. It also has a cable release socket at the end of the cover.

There are no exposure or focus aids fitted. Everything has to be manually adjusted including the shutter which has to be manually cocked before a picture can be taken. Because of this, the camera would be typically set to ‘snap shot’ settings of f/8, 1/100sec and focused at perhaps 20 feet so it was ready for an instant picture, and could be adjusted to more relevant settings if the photographer had time to set it.

To rewind the film and remove it from the camera a small lever is fitted to the back which is lifted to disengage the film advance. The rewind crank can then be used to wind the film back into the canister and remove it. When the rewind lever is lifted it also exposes a thumbwheel which is used to set the frame counter when the film is loaded.

Voigtlander Vito Specifications

Voigtlander Vito 35mm folding camera

Prontor II shutter with speeds of 1 sec to 1/200 sec + bulb

Mechanical self timer

Voigtlander Skopar 50mm f/3.5 lens

Aperture range f/3.5 to f/22

Manual focus

Removable film real – can be replaced with 35mm cartridge

Press shut film chamber with ‘clam shell’ style lock

Count down frame counter

Accessory shoe fitted (non standard)

Table top stand built in

Voigtlander Vito 35mm Folding camera The Voigtlander Vito is a 35mm folding camera fitted with a Prontor II shutter, a Voigtlander Skopar 50mm f/3.5 lens and was made just after the second world war in about 1947.

#35mm #film #folding camera #photography #vintage camera #Voigtlander Vito

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simonhawketts · 7 years

Text

I recently bought an Agfa Karat 12 folding rangefinder camera from eBay which needed a bit of work to get it working properly. Although I bought it as a ‘fully working camera’, when I received it I found the film advance was stiff, the shutter locked up and the focus pretty much solid. I think the seller on eBay was probably a fairly strong contender for the Man Booker Prize as a creator of fictional work!

Since the Karat 12 can be quite a lot of money, and since I thought I could probably get it working I decided to fix it rather than send it back.

The easiest part to deal with first was the film advance mechanism so I proceeded to take the top off the camera and strip it down and then clean each of the parts, apply grease where applicable and re-assemble it. I’ve done this before on a different model Karat, but since his camera is a rangefinder, and has a more complex mechanism, it is quite different.

I’ll describe the procedure I used to get the film advance working and the pictures below will also give some guidance.

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Agfa Karat 12 strip down – camera before any work

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removed the screw at the end of the top cover

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – screw hidden behind the film advance

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – remove these two screws and the one underneath

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – top cover removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance detail

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removing screw from frame counter

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – frame counter removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – frame counter latch removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – frame counter mechanism

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – front screw holding the rangefinder

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – back two screws holding the rangefinder

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – rangefinder removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removing the frame counter mechanism

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – mechanism under the rangefinder

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance mechanism

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – the rangefinder driving lever

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – the bellows release mechanism

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – cover removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removing the shutter release

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removing the shutter release spring

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – removing the film advance

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance centre pin unscrewed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance lever exposed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance lever removed

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – bellows release cleaned up

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film advance cleaned up

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – cover plate on

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – film counter refitted

Agfa Karat 12 strip down – all cleaned up

These pictures can also be viewed in full size here.

Strip down of the film advance.

The first part of the process is to get the top of the camera off so that the mechanism is exposed. This is quite an easy camera to get apart – there is a screw at the end of the camera top by the depth of field guide and another one which is hidden by the film advance. Move the film advance round the back of the camera to expose the screw and undo & remove it. The top is then held on with a screw through the middle of the depth of field gauge. Remove the two screws in the top and lift off the plate and there is an obvious screw to remove – with it out the top lifts away. Be aware that the shutter release button has an inner rod which may very well fall out as the top comes off.

With the top off I started to take the film advance apart using the steps shown in the pictures above. Although I only removed the rangefinder after I’d got to a point where in needs to come off, if I were to do the process again I would probably remove the rangefinder first and put it safely out of the way.

During the process of stripping down the mechanism I would suggest each part is put safely to one side and as much as possible keep the screws in the holes they fit in so that it is easier to remember which screw goes where.

The film advance mechanism naturally consists of two main assemblies – the frame counter and the actual film advance mechanism. The frame counter consists of the counter dial itself, a latch underneath it and a plate which supports the mechanism. Once this is off the shutter release cover plate, latch, release rod and spring come off and then the film advance mechanism itself is exposed.

The film advance is held in place with a screw through the center which has two holes in the top. You need to use a lens spanner or something similar to unscrew this and it needs a bit of force to get it undone. Once it is out the other components lift off for cleaning. The bottom component is a large cog which mates with three smaller cogs. When it comes time to put this back in place the cog has to go back in the same position, so it would be a good idea to mark the cogs which mesh in some way. I didn’t do this, I just used the pictures I’d taken to get the angle of the cam on the top of the cog the same, but if I were to do it again I would mark the position.

As well as the film advance there is also a mechanism on the other end of the camera which is used to release the front standard from the body. I also disassembled that and cleaned and re-greased the runner that the sprung mechanism which pushes the front standard out sits in.

Re-Assembly of the film advance

With all the pieces off, I proceeded to clean each with cotton buds and Iso Propyl Alcohol (IPA) removing all the old grease and dirt. With the pieces clean I re-assembled the film advance first adding a very thin film of grease where necessary. The general rule I use is that if pieces had grease on when I cleaned them, or obviously need to move against other pieces then I add a very small amount of grease.

As I said above it is important to get the film advance cog at the right angle when it is re-assembled so that the timing of the rest of the film advance is correct. I used the picture I had taken and set it just off straight which seemed to be right. Then the rest of the film advance components went on top and I screwed the central screw down again.

Another tricky bit to reassemble is the frame counter latch mechanism. You need to hold the plate under the frame counter in place and swing the sprung loaded latch out of the way. I found the spring on the latch came off and I had to re-fit it but once everything is in place just screw the central holding screw in. I found this screw mustn’t be done up too tight or the frame counter will bind and not work properly.

With the film advance re-assembled and tested to make sure it all worked nicely I then moved on to taking the shutter off and cleaning and lubricating it, which will be the subject of my next post on this camera.

Cleaning and servicing the Agfa Karat 12 film advance. I recently bought an Agfa Karat 12 folding rangefinder camera from eBay which needed a bit of work to get it working properly.

#35mm #agfa karat 12 #camera #film #photography #repair #vintage

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