What have you just BOUGHT?

[Tim Murphy]

Dear Board,

I've been searching for an STH lever drag medium sized reel for a long time. I have one with a spare spool that I bought new 30 years ago. They stopped making them not long after that. When one showed up on eBay with the padded leather case, I hit BIN, and my search was over.

Today's project is reversing the line and the retrieve on the reel and trying to figure out what weight fly line is on it. If it's a 7 or 8 weight, I'll be golden because the line is also in near perfect condition.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

IMG_20250831_101749_MP by Tim Murphy, on Flickr

 

[Godfrey]

Found a mint Voigtlander Vito B at the antique shop yesterday for $12 USD. I thought the shutter was stuck but after a little reading in the threads, camera needs a film inserted to operate. Popped in a roll and she works fine.

Beautiful little jewel of a camera.

View attachment 4875526
View attachment 4875527

I may have spoken too soon: sounds like the shutter fires but the leaves aren't opening - even on "B". I'll exercise the shutter some more to see if there's hope.

It's been a while since I had a Vito B, but I believe it's the same with respect to the double exposure prevention as the Vito II which I recently had refurbished. To work the shutter without having to roll film through the camera:

• Open the back
• Wind the advance a stroke or two
• Roll the sprocket roller (with the points that engage the film spocket holes) in the direction of the film transport until it stops
• Release the shutter

You can do this over and over again without having to move film through the camera, and you can see whether the shutter is opening or not in the process by looking through the camera from the back. If the shutter isn't opening, well, it likely needs to be serviced (not unusual for any half-century old film camera...). I had Advance Camera Repair in Portland, OR service my Vito II last year, which I had plucked out of a discard heap of cameras the local museum was tossing in the garbage about a dozen and a half years ago. They did an excellent job, charged me about $190 (including the two-way shipping) for the work, and the camera is "as new" now functionally and EXC- cosmetically. (I also found the clip-on accessory shoe adapter for it on-line for $20 or so, so now I can fit a small meter or rangefinder on top...)

The Vito II and Vito B have a very good Color-Skopar 50mm f/3.5 lens and can make excellent photographs. And they're small, light, and handy to use. 😀

Flags & Light - Santa Clara 2025
Voigtländer Vito II
Ferrania P33​

G

 

[Muggins]

Bought is not quite the right term as I have been "given" three bits of kit by a friend on the promise that I find out how much they are worth, and offer a fair price. As the alternative was a charity shop, I am quite happy with that as it will all go the same way. Just need to find time and spoons to do so...

No 1: A Crown box camera - nothing too exciting, fairly standard el cheapo cardboad box camera from cheapest-of-the-cheap Standard Camera Co

No 2: a 50mm f2.8 Nikon enlarger lens, complete with lens cap and keeper (though I've thrown the piece of foam as it was crumbling with age)

No 3: a Voigtlander Bessa.

That got you all excited. Not that exciting, though - it's the 1935-1937 model depicted here: Bessa (folders) - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia - generally in good condition, complete with the mask for 6x4.5 (and very neat folding/sliding VF masks). This has the Compur shutter with speeds to 1/250th, and an f4.5 Voigtar lens, s/n955325. The shutter sticks on speeds below 1/25th, but I'm unlikely to ever use them anyway so may not bother taking it apart. Best of all, it has that lovely pop-up release lever on the door - it's the nicest release on any pre-WW2 folder I've come across. If you've used one you'll know what I mean! Also seems to be for the home market as the DoF table on the back door (seriously, you need the eyes of a hawk to use it - they are lovely things - but bloomin' technical and hard to read!) is in metres, with the text in German.

 

[jaredangle]

Just picked up an unopened 5-pack of Portra 400 in 220 that expired in 2013 but was reported as frozen since then. I’ll have to run one test roll on something around town, but then I’m looking forward to using the other four rolls for some projects.