New Voigtlander Camera
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 4:06 amGary asked for people who had acquired equipment at Xmas to post so here is my new Voigtlander camera:
It's a 1930 Voigtlander Bessar with an f3.5 135mm lens. Available apertures are f6.3, f11 and f22. Available shutter speeds are 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, B and T. Some friends of mine gave it to me as a decorative curio for a bookshelf but it appears to be in working order. Film format is 6.5x11cm which is larger than 120. In the back was one original spool and a 120 spool gerry-rigged on a small metal rod. This was loose but a friend of mine who collects cameras was able to supply a second correct spool(!). So what I need to do is to unwind 120 film in a dark bag and wind it onto one of the large spools (easier said than done but possible).
The format would have been intended to provide small prints by contact printing rather than enlargement. Also there is no pressure plate at the back for the film so the fim plane will probably not be precise. So it may not be super sharp but I'll have to try and find out. Maybe it will have a desirable feel even if not very sharp. First there's a small hole in the bellows to plug.
I took the image with an older camera and lens that I've had for a week or two. That's a D800 plus a 24mm f3.5 PC-E. Take some D800 images, add some layers in Photoshop and save as TIFFs and they want to become larger than Tony Abbott's ego so I'm contemplating measures to save space as discussed in the byte off more than you can choo thread. The 24mm PC-E is an interesting lens not suitable for the casual user. The centre is devastatingly sharp at f5.6 but the far corners are soft. Notwithstanding diffraction, at f16 central sharpness is not quite as sharp but still excellent and the far corners are very good. Shift is straightforward but tilt is not easy to get right, not nearly as easy as 5x4 because the electronic equivalent of the focusing glass is much smaller. I may need to get out the dark cloth again. Perfect panoramas are possible using the shift, shifting the back rather than the lens though I haven't tried that yet. It is of course manual focus and it focuses surprisingly close. Modifying the lens to have tilts and shifts in the same plane is desirable and I had expected between $100 and $200 but a Nikon Repair rep suggests something like $600. DIY is not possible for that on this lens.
It's a 1930 Voigtlander Bessar with an f3.5 135mm lens. Available apertures are f6.3, f11 and f22. Available shutter speeds are 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, B and T. Some friends of mine gave it to me as a decorative curio for a bookshelf but it appears to be in working order. Film format is 6.5x11cm which is larger than 120. In the back was one original spool and a 120 spool gerry-rigged on a small metal rod. This was loose but a friend of mine who collects cameras was able to supply a second correct spool(!). So what I need to do is to unwind 120 film in a dark bag and wind it onto one of the large spools (easier said than done but possible).
The format would have been intended to provide small prints by contact printing rather than enlargement. Also there is no pressure plate at the back for the film so the fim plane will probably not be precise. So it may not be super sharp but I'll have to try and find out. Maybe it will have a desirable feel even if not very sharp. First there's a small hole in the bellows to plug.
I took the image with an older camera and lens that I've had for a week or two. That's a D800 plus a 24mm f3.5 PC-E. Take some D800 images, add some layers in Photoshop and save as TIFFs and they want to become larger than Tony Abbott's ego so I'm contemplating measures to save space as discussed in the byte off more than you can choo thread. The 24mm PC-E is an interesting lens not suitable for the casual user. The centre is devastatingly sharp at f5.6 but the far corners are soft. Notwithstanding diffraction, at f16 central sharpness is not quite as sharp but still excellent and the far corners are very good. Shift is straightforward but tilt is not easy to get right, not nearly as easy as 5x4 because the electronic equivalent of the focusing glass is much smaller. I may need to get out the dark cloth again. Perfect panoramas are possible using the shift, shifting the back rather than the lens though I haven't tried that yet. It is of course manual focus and it focuses surprisingly close. Modifying the lens to have tilts and shifts in the same plane is desirable and I had expected between $100 and $200 but a Nikon Repair rep suggests something like $600. DIY is not possible for that on this lens.
