It’s almost a year since I posted anything related to my camera collection. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t acquired additional cameras. It’s mostly because at some point I decided that I wouldn’t post anything to do with the cameras in my collection unless I could also include some pictures taken with the camera. Unfortunately, the cameras I collect are all film cameras and for some reason I haven’t been doing much film photography of late even though I enjoy the experience of shooting film a lot.
So I’ve been forced to rethink the decision mentioned above. I’ll now post pictures of the cameras themselves and if/when I get around to using them I’ll do another post with the pictures taken.
This is one of my latest acquisitions: a Voigtlander Vitomatic II from the late 1950s. It’s solidly made from metal and for a camera of its size (quite small) it’s quite heavy. It has a coupled rangefinder and meter, both of which seem to be working even though the rangefinder patch is a little dim and I’m not entirely convinced that the meter is accurate (which doesn’t bother me since older selenium cell meters rarely work at all and in any case I have a meter I can use). I suspect that the price was good because the seller thought that the shutter wasn’t working. I took a chance on this not being the case as I’d read that because of a peculiar shutter cocking mechanism the shutter won’t cock and fire without a film in the camera. This turned out to be the case and the shutter seems to be working fine. It has a Voigtlander Color-Skopar 50mm f2.8 lens with apertures from f2.8 to f22. I have a modern Color Skopar lens and if it’s anything like that it will be an excellent lens. Shutter speeds top out at 1/300 second, which is fine for me. I don’t do much ‘action’ photography. Cosmetically it’s in pretty good shape. It has a large viewfinder with bright lines.
It’s a beautiful camera. In fact I’m thinking of collecting some of these 1950s/1960s Voigtlander and Zeiss cameras. I love the way they look, they’re pretty well made and are often still working even after all this time. Also most of of them don’t cost a lot, particularly in the condition I’m looking for (I’m not looking for mint condition). This is an important factor as most of the cameras I now want cost more than I’m willing to pay. There are many variants of Vitos, Vitomatics and the like and I could see myself getting a few of these. I’ve got my eye on a Vito B, first version with the smaller viewfinder.