Interesting Voigtlander Brillant

[sweathog]

Hello all.
Just a little teaser for you all.
There's a shop in Brighton that I pop into every couple of days to see what camera offerings they have (at times they have some cracking stuff in there).
Now, in one of the camera cabinets they haev a Brillant. Nothing exciting there.
Except it seems that on this one the viewing lens focuses. I.E. it is not a scale focuser.
Has anybody seen or heard of this before?
Admittedly I have only looked at it in the cabinet, but next time I'm in I'll ask for them to take it out and have a proper look. Possibly even buy, depending on whther it is what I think it is.

Tom

 

[Seele]

Tom,

It's quite common; both lenses connected through gears. The Lubitel copied it.

 

[sweathog]

Aha.
Thanks for that Seele. As far as I knew they were all scale focus.
Don't I feel a right twit now.

 

[D.O'K.]

I have one. The trouble is that the gear teeth which couples the lenses are apt to wear easily, causing them to ride over each other during turning and thereby misaligning the focus between the lenses. As these cameras are old the damage has usually already been done. It's not just my bad luck etiher--since discovering the problem I've read it's quite common.

Regards,
D.

 

[Keith]

I have an old scale focus Brilliant and it truly is just that ... 'brilliant!' It has a superb lens and is extremely easy to use ... I think it's a 1933 model but I'm not totally sure?

 

[Seele]

Some of these Brillants came with Heliars, talk about over-specified, but if properly set up, would be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

 

[Sanders McNew]

I just got back from a long weekend
in Paris -- I took along my Voigtlander
Superb (the Brilliant's big brother, with
a Heliar) and just developed the film:

Not bad for a 70-year-old camera. This
is the interior of Sainte-Chapelle on a
dreary afternoon -- handheld, 1/5 second,
wide-open at f/3.5, and a prayer.

Sanders

 

[JohanV]

So there you were, at less than two hour's drive away, and you didn't even come and visit me.🙄

Seriously, I hope you had a good time...

 

[Sanders McNew]

So there you were, at less than two hour's drive away, and you didn't even come and visit me.🙄

Seriously, I hope you had a good time...

Johan, I did think to call. Had I been able to get
into the darkroom before we left, I definitely
would have called. But I did not, and so shame
kept me from dialing. 🙂

This week, I promise.

Sanders

 

[JohanV]

No need to feel shame, take your time.
And I'm looking forward to see some more of your Paris pics...