ISO setting on Bessa 1

[hausen]

Picked up a near mint Bessa 1 this week (a long with Fuji GF670) and had a fun day out with both today. This might be a stupid question but how do you set ISO on Bessa 1? Had a roll of Tri-X and set exposure based on 400iso because couldn't work out how to set ISO. Negs look great but feel like that is a bit of a fluke.🙂

 

[Leigh Youdale]

If the camera doesn't have an exposure meter you have nowhere to set ISO or ASA or anything else relating to film speed. And if it does have a meter this would be the first Bessa I I've ever heard of with one fitted - and I've owned a couple of them.
It's a fully manual camera and you use a hand held meter with it - or an eyeball estimate of the light. You then adjust the combination of shutter speed and aperture to suit.
So you set the ISO on the hand-held meter. If you don't have one, better get one!

 

[hausen]

That was the disconnect for me. Obviously I used a hand hold meter but when I was was setting ISO on the meter realized I hadn't set anything on camera so just chose film speed. Seems obvious now.