voigtlander cameras

[stephy777]

hi there,

Just thought I'd introduce myself, Im from the UK and recently bought 2 Voightlanders from a car boot, and in trying to find out some information about them I came across this forum 🙂

Reading what some of you had to say has made me quite tempted to keep maybe one of them and use it...

I have a vitessa t and a vito c....?

any advice / suggestions etc would be greatly appreciated 🙂

thank you

steph

 

[leica M2 fan]

Welcome Steph. You'll like it here many very knowledgeable people willing to help.
Which two cameras did you buy? And please post pictures from your Vito and Vitessa.

 

[Dwig]

First, welcome to the forum.

Second, you can find instruction manuals at this link:

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/voigtlander.htm

 

[stephy777]

hi

thank you

I've been trying to upload them but it won't let me for some reason, I'll try again later 🙂

 

[BrooklyNYC]

I use a Voigtlander Bessa R3A at times, but since it's made in Japan, I don't know if my opinion counts..... But it's a fun rangefinder to use.

 

[Muggins]

Hi Steph,

The Vitessa T in particular is a very nice find - they were a top-of-the-range camera in their day (late 1950s), and Voigtlander tended to make cameras that you could use to bang nails in with. The Vito C is, I suspect, a slightly later model, much simpler in construction. I had one that I foolishly passed on to someone else, it was one of the nicest cameras of the period I've ever used. The huge viewfinder is a great help as well.

The main obstacles to using them are these:

1. Did they get out away because they were knackered, or because they were replaced by something newer and sexier?

2. The Vitessa has a selenium cell lightmeter - these tend to die with age, there's a good chance yours will be dead or wildly inaccurate I'm afraid.

3. Have they seized up in storage?

I have a roll of cheap film I use to test the winding mechanisms of any camera I buy - Poundland is apparently a good source, though I've never found it in our local one. You will probably have to load the film into the cameras before they will allow you to test the shutter. It was a common PITA - sorry, feature of German cameras of the period, but you can usually defeat it by turning the film sprockets by hand - that will allow you to operate the camera with the back open so you can see whether the shutter opens and closes as it should.

Hope that helps get you started!

Adrian
(also in the UK)

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

Hi Steph,

The Vitessa T in particular is a very nice find - they were a top-of-the-range camera in their day (late 1950s), and Voigtlander tended to make cameras that you could use to bang nails in with. The Vito C is, I suspect, a slightly later model, much simpler in construction. I had one that I foolishly passed on to someone else, it was one of the nicest cameras of the period I've ever used. The huge viewfinder is a great help as well.

The main obstacles to using them are these:

1. Did they get out away because they were knackered, or because they were replaced by something newer and sexier?

2. The Vitessa has a selenium cell lightmeter - these tend to die with age, there's a good chance yours will be dead or wildly inaccurate I'm afraid.

3. Have they seized up in storage?

I have a roll of cheap film I use to test the winding mechanisms of any camera I buy - Poundland is apparently a good source, though I've never found it in our local one. You will probably have to load the film into the cameras before they will allow you to test the shutter. It was a common PITA - sorry, feature of German cameras of the period, but you can usually defeat it by turning the film sprockets by hand - that will allow you to operate the camera with the back open so you can see whether the shutter opens and closes as it should.

Hope that helps get you started!

Adrian
(also in the UK)

The earlier folding Vitessas will cock and fire the shutter without a film. I'd be pretty sure the T models would also, as they use the same plunger design instead of a conventional wind lever, and hence, would therefore have to share at least the same bottom drive gearing off the plunger. I'd be interested to know if they do require a film to work but I'd be surprised if they did. The Vito B series for instance certainly need to have a film in them to actuate the shutter mechanism, the later C series on the other hand do not.
Old selenium cells can certainly fail to read correctly, however I would say that of all the various makes and models of selenium powered meters made by the different manufacturers, the Voigtlander ones are generally some of the most likely to still function accurately in 2015, so I would not discount the possibility that the one fitted to the thread starter's camera may still be good. In order to know that however she would have to re-appear and it has now been a month since she posted here, so who knows?
Cheers,
Brett

 

[hendriphile]

Hello and welcome!

What kind of lenses came with those cameras?

 

[struene]

Hallo,

i have inherited (from two diferent sources) a similar Vito CL and a CLR, which add a coupled ligthmeter (CL) and even coupled rangefinder (CLR).

The Color-Skopar 50/2.8 lens is still very good by todays standards, also for colour work. The cameras are build superbly and will outlive all of us. only the ergonomics are not 100% up to date, with the shutter release in front of the body and the "un-grippy" havy rounded box.

Nevertheless the 1:1 finder is great to shoot and the leaf-shutter is noiseless. Quite some fun all in all, but maybe not a primary-camera.

The lightmeterupdate of the CL(R) is it worth, the seleniumcells in both of my vitos superisingly still work perfectly. The rangefinder of a CLR will certainly need a adjustment.

Good lens, good build, have fun with it.

schöne Grüße,

Johann