1930s Voigtlander Bessa

[Muggins]

I'd be telling whoppers if I said I'd always been looking for a Bessa, but when I found this one for a whole £5 at a car boot sale, I couldn't resist.

Voigtlander Bessa by gray1720, on Flickr

It all looks in working order, even the 1 second speed isn't too slow (and, of course, even it runs at two seconds, that's only a stop out...), decent Compur shutter, and an f4.5 Anastigmat lens. Well, I think that's the lens it has - I've not found my hand lens yet to check, the white paint has come out of the lettering, and I'm too long sighted to read it!

I've yet to run a roll through it, a break in October is looking the best bet at the mo, but I'm itching to give it a go. Both my other reasonable quality 1930s folders (a Welta Perle and a Certo Dolly) have shutter releases that seem to have been added as an afterthought. The Welta's is just awful, and the Certos is OKish, but the Bessa has a little chromed trigger that pops up when the camera is opened and it's perfect! It fits the finger perfectly and is sweet and smooth, very easy to trip the shutter without wobbling the camera.

Voigtlander Bessa shutter release by gray1720, on Flickr

Any other owners of 1930s Bessas here?

Adrian

 

[Pioneer]

I have a couple, neither of which get the use they deserve. The older 1930s version came with a very nice Skopar lens which I understand is a Tessar style lens. Unfortunately for the older Bessa, my Bessa II has a Color Heliar lens that is very, very nice. Sometimes I wish I could afford to buy one with the APO Lanthar just to see if that lens is so much better that it deserves the elevated price.

I am somewhat uncertain what to think of the trigger style shutter release, I have the same one on my Bessa II. If I use the camera to shoot more than one or two rolls of film I become accustomed to it but if I have taken it out just to give the shutter a bit of exercise it is dissimilar enough from all my other folders that I find it odd and out of place.

The Bessa is a very solid camera and I do much prefer the viewfinder style on the older Bessas to the squinty little hole that they used on the Bessa II. The cameras both work very well and, assuming I keep the shutters well exercised, I don't see anything that makes me uncomfortable that it will break or bend anytime soon. They were obviously a very high quality camera back in their day.

In some respects I do find it kind of interesting that Leica was apparently able to make such rapid inroads into the quality camera industry when you consider the obvious quality benefit of the medium format film. Though the folders were not considered to be "professional" cameras at the time, neither was the Leica. Even though the Leica was small, a compact Zeiss Ikon 645 or 6x6 folder certainly wasn't a "monster" by comparison.

 

[summar]

I have a Bessa 66 with a mystery lens (swing-out yellow filter torn away). I like the camera, and judging from the results the lens just may be one of the better options. Like its post-war descendant, the Perkeo, it's amazingly compact -- medium format in your pocket!

 

[Robert Lai]

I have the immediate post war Bessa RF, built in 1947 or 1948. It's a 6 x 9 cm format camera, which can be 6 x 4.5cm by putting in a mask. Mine came with the mask. I'm amazed that they put a Color Heliar lens in there (coated). Mine has been completely rebuilt by Gus Lazzari, so everything works - even the self timer. My only regret about this camera is that there is no flash synch. The shutter is similar to yours. Mine goes to 1/400 top speed.

I found out that Kalart made mechanical synchronizers for flash bulbs, for cameras before the built in flash synch era. A recent purchase of $8 on ebay netted me a Kalart Compak (sic) Speed Flash. It uses 2 "C" cells. On the cable is a conical device called a "passive synchronizer". You need to adjust the throw so that the shutter and the flash go off at the same instant. There is a handy test light on the flash to allow you to check when the circuit is closed. It take s a few minutes of fiddling to get it adjusted right. But, once done you set down the lockscrew, and it is now custom fitted for your shutter. I was having a blast firing off M3 flash bulbs, now synchronized to my Bessa RF. I'm still working through a roll of Fuji Acros 100. Once I get the roll developed, I'll see how well my synchronizer works. As an experiment, I tried synchronizing all speeds from 1/25, up to 1/400.

 

[jarski]

Even though the Leica was small, a compact Zeiss Ikon 645 or 6x6 folder certainly wasn't a "monster" by comparison.

Good point. Somehow the image from literature I've absorbed is that there was only either the agile miniature camera (Leica) or the other extreme, a wooden box camera (and Ansel Adams lugging such to mountains of Yosemite 😛 ).

 

[citizen99]

I had one of the Bessa Rangefinder versions, of which the shutter and lens serial numbers dated it to the late 1930s. The Heliar lens on that was superb. I've also had Skopar ('tessar' type) and Helomar (triplet) lenses from the era, all of which gave excellent results. The OP's Anastigmat might possibly be a Voigtar; I'm sure that won't disappoint.
The pop-out shutter release suited me very well.
An excellent buy for £5 🙂.

 

[Muggins]

If I get a mo I'll take a photo of the eye-level viewfinder - very neat, it lives under the cover you can see on the right of the top photo, which pops up when the camera is opened. The viewfinder then self-erects and there is a little mask for half-frame which you can lift with a fingernail. Like the trigger release it's very natural to use.

The number of formats available at the time never fails to surprise me - the Certo Dolly I have (also must take a photo...) takes half-frame on 127 or, if I had the back, would take full-frame plates.

Adrian

ETA - yes, it's a Voigtar, finally found my hand lens.

ESMTA - couldn't believe I didn't have a photo of the Dolly, turns out it was on Photo**ckit.