My new Bessa I

[vonfilm]

I just received a Bessa I from Jurgen Kreckel at Certo 6. It has a 3.5 Color-Skopar lens and a Prontor S shutter. Everything seems to work perfectly on it and the lens is very clear. I have become fascinated with folding cameras lately and I can't wait to see some scans and prints from it. I plan to run a roll of either XP2 orPortra 400 through it tomorrow. I will post the best as soon as I have scans from the first roll

 

[vonfilm]

Uploaded by ProCamera by vonfilm, on Flickr

 

[vonfilm]

I ran a roll of XP2 through the Bessa I this afternoon at the Capitol Building in Austin, Texas. It was late afternoon and mostly cloudy. Everything was shot from a tripod and mostly at f16 at 1/10th second. I couldn't get far enough away to capture the whole capitol building in one shot. There were too many trees in the way. I tried to be as steady as possible. Next time I shoot off the tripod, I will use the self timer.

Lots of people were there shooting photos. The Bessa I got lots of funny looks but no comments.

 

[vonfilm]

93020001 by vonfilm, on Flickr


93020003 by vonfilm, on Flickr


93020004 by vonfilm, on Flickr


93020006 by vonfilm, on Flickr

I am very pleased how they turned out.

 

[RM6]

Fun! I also live in Austin and occasionally use a Bessa I. It's a great camera, and that negative is enormous! Folded up it slips into the front pocket on my bag quite nicely, making it surprisingly easy to take on trips.

If you use it a lot, you might consider getting one of the accessory rangefinders. The original voigtlander rangefinders show up on ebay occasionally, or fotoman made one that has a distance scale that also exactly matches the distances printed on the lens. That one is nice because it's easily adjusted if it ever falls out of alignment.

A couple of my favorites from it:

 

[kuzano]

NIce... and hard to find....

NIce... and hard to find....

A Bessa I with the Color Skopar is unusual. It's even more unusual with the Color Skopar in a Synchro Compur shutter. It's also hard to find the 645 mask that allows you to shoot 16 shots on a roll of 120. The masks that originally came with these camera's have usually departed along the way. I used to shoot a lot of 6X4.5 in one of my Bessa I's.

Nice pics, from a hard to find camera.

Jurgen has done work on some of my cameras before. I think I had 2 or 3 bellows installed by him on Mamiya Six Folders. Bought a very nice Porscht Hapo 66E from him with the Enna Werke lens. Great little 6X6. Same camera as the Balda Super Baldax

 

[jnoir]

[...] Bought a very nice Porscht Hapo 66E [...]

It's actually spelled Porst. Hapo = HAns POrst, the entrepreneur who built up Porst, a big photo retailer in Germany. I have one of his own catalogues, signed and with anotations. Curious, to say the least.

[...] with the Enna Werke lens [...]

As far as I know - which may not be a lot 😉 - this particular model of the camera was fitted always with Enna lenses (Ennatar and the like) renamed as Haponar. As a matter of fact, two versions of this lens were available, one with f/4.5 and one with f/3.5

[...] Same camera as the Balda Super Baldax.

Actually, it is a rebadged Balda Baldax. The Super Baldax is the CRF version, and was not marketed for Porst.

 

[Ted Forbes]

You're gonna love it. Jurgen is amazing and those cameras are a ton of fun to use!