Vitomatic II, um

[johnnyrod]

I was dead chuffed to get a Voigtlander Vitomatic II on the Bay of Pigs for a mere £4 ($6) plus postage, even checked the meter worked beforehand. What arrived looked like it was a "find" by Burke and Hare, but the very well stuck ectoplasm came off in the end. All actually seemed fine, 1/300 wouldn't work but I found a small screw adrift in the selector ring - God knows where from, but it seemed to only be jamming the ring. It even had most of a roll of film in it, and all clicked nicely, so I got on and used it up. Photos back yesterday - terrible, so dark you can't believe it, except for two which aren't bad, so maybe it's not just a duff film. I need to investigate but it's almost like the shutter is running really fast. I can test this when I build a shutter tester circuit, hopefully it'll all work out in the end. It's unit focus with a Skopar 50mm f2.8 lens which is now nice and clean and thankfully had no fungus. The rangefinder was filthy along with everything else but it's accurate. So, just sharing my story so far. need to get the soldering iron next! And cross my fingers.

 

[batterytypehah!]

It shouldn't take a shutter tester to tell if it's completely off. How's the shutter doing when you fire without film? (Remember to rotate the big sprocket above the film gate manually, otherwise the shutter will be blocked.)

 

[johnnyrod]

It's hard to tell the difference between the three fastest speeds. My ear isn't really dialled in but they do all sound a bit quick.

 

[johnnyrod]

I did the shutter testing using the little electronic gizmo and Audacity software. For 1/300, 1/125, 1/60 and 1/30 they aren't too far out though 1/300 is closer to 1/180. You get a peak up when the shutter opens than a peak down as it closes. On the slower speeds the peaks weren't very well defined, I am wondering if the shutter leaves aren't opening fully. It works fine on B, and it all sounds fine. Not sure if there is any way to check this though. The camera itself was pretty grubby when I got it, though inside it looked good and everything seems to click nicely, maybe this is a red herring. Wondering if I should try flushing the shutter mechanism with some solvent to degrease it.

 

[phofseth]

If, like some aficionados using last century technology, you have a turntable. Instead of putting an LP record on, put a piece of paper on the edge with a thin black line pointing towards the central spindle. It will rotate at 33rpm.

Then put a film in your Vitomatic and snap away at the various slow speeds. The distance travelled by the line + some maths)will give you the answer to whether your 1\4 second, 1\2 second or 1 second is off.

p.

 

[johnnyrod]

The force is strong in this one. Yes I do have a turntable, and it's a good shout though.

I went back to the test film and checked it out. I made notes of exposures, and all I can compare to is the sunny f16 rule, but I think the worst of it was down to bad metering. It was set for ISO200 when the film already inside turned out to be 100. I compared the meter against the Pocket Light Meter app and it seemed okay, but I think it is more prone to interference of ambient light than I expected - certainly more than the Zeiss rangefinders I have. Finally I have a suspicion that the app is metering a stop too dark, now that I've had some use out of it. It's on ipad not iphone but I need to borrow a normal meter to compare with. So all in I was exposing 2-3 stops too dark on an old crappy film. The results aren't very consistent with each other but I think that's it. For now am a bit fed up with it so put it back in the cupboard and put films in my Contessa and Mess Ikonta!

If I make any progress then I'll report.