Voigtlander Vito II

Voigtlander Vito II

Voigtlander Vito II ready for action

Voigtlander's Vito range of cameras are 35mm cameras aimed at serious amateurs.  They date from the 1940s to the 1960s and pre-date the SLR concept.  As was normal for the time, they come with several options of lenses and shutters.
  

Camera ready for carrying.

Initially, the Vito range were folding cameras that were small enough when closed to easily fit into a pocket.  My example is a mid-dated Vito II - the Vito II model went through a number of revisions with minor details being changed with each revision.  There was one major revision which gave rise to the Vito IIa.  I also have an original Vito I.  A comparison of my Vito cameras can be seen here.

The sequence of changes in the Vito II were: 

• 1949 Introduced 
• 1950 Shutter release bar became shutter release button, holder for an accessory shoe added 
• 1951 Film take-up spool is fixed and rewind knob is telescopic 
• 1954 Accessory shoe fitted (rather than provision for one) Compur shutter available 
• 1955 Film advance now a lever, larger viewfinder (Vito IIa) 

So my Vito II is a 1954 version although the lens serial number shows the lens was made in 1953.

So, a basic description.  The camera easily fits in a hand (my hand at any road), being 125mm long, 75mm high and 40mm thick when closed.  The lens standard is opened by a recessed button on the base - the cover is hinged on the side and the lens comes forward and locks in position.  This action is spring loaded but on my camera the spring is not strong enough to fully open the camera.  When new, it may well have been fully automatic opening.  To close the camera again, two buttons have to be pressed simultaneously and the cover pushed into place.

 

The lens on my Vito II is a Voigtlander Color-Skopar 50mm which is Voigtlander's version of a Zeiss Ikon Tessar.  This lens has a very good reputation.   It focusses down to 3.5 feet - this camera uses front cell focussing which is not quite as good as moving the whole lens top focus but this only matters for close to work and for landscapes is fine.  The results are excellent.  The focussing scale has two Happy Snapper settings - "o” which is the hyperfocal setting for f5.6 and “V” which the hyperfocal setting at f16. When the focus is set to "o” and the aperture to f5.6, the depth of field extends from 15 feet to infinity and when set to “V” and the aperture to f16, the depth of field extends from 5.5 feet to infinity.  The lens serial number dates this lens to 1953 although the camera was made in 1954.
 

The lens has a slight but definite purple tinge to it which suggests that it is a coated lens but if it is, it is still, unfortunately, susceptible to flare. Using this camera, it is necessary to remember the advice my father gave me as a child – always keep the sun behind you.
 

The aperture range is f3.5 to f16. The shutter is the cheaper Pronto shutter made by Gauthier and offers four speeds – 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/200 seconds as well a B. There is also a delay action timer which delays the shutter release by about ten seconds. This is very difficult to use as the setting lever is very close to the struts holding the lens in place.

 

This camera is old enough to need manual cocking of the shutter. The actual shutter release is on the shutter housing but it is actuated by a button on top of the lens cover – there is also a cable release socket at this position. The camera has two safety devices – first, the shutter will not fire if the film has not been wound on so no double exposures and secondly, the winding knob will only move the film on one frame without the shutter being fired. This last can be over-ridden so a part-used film can be rewound into the cassette and then refitted and would on to the next unexposed frame at a later date. This allows the photographer to change between types of film while on a shoot without wasting film.
 

The last thing to mention regarding the shutter is the presence of a PC (Prontor Compur) flash connector. There is no selector to choose between bulb or electronic flash and on the model I have (Pronto shutter) it is for F synchronisation only – i.e. the flash will fire when the shutter is nearly fully open which is intended for fast flash bulbs.  With Synchro-Compur and Prontor SV shutters, you would have X and M synchronisation available. Both the film advance and film rewind are by way of a large milled knob – one on each end on the top plate. The back of the camera fastens with a not entirely satisfactory catch. When the camera is in the ever-ready case, this will not matter but I tend to carry this camera in my pocket and I have had the back unfasten itself.
 

The viewfinder is a Galilean type and is rather small. Wearing spectacles as I do, I find it very hard to use as I cannot get my eye near enough to the eyepiece. The only other thing worth noting is that this camera has feet. This is common on cameras of this era (40s and 50s) and the feet take the form of small metal projections on the base plate and the lens door. These enable the camera to be set down on a suitable surface so that self-portraits can be done using the delayed action timer.

18 September 2012: 

This is now a favourite camera with only a few niggles.  The first is its age - around sixty years old.  My concern for its age revolve around the bellows.  These are made from some sort of oiled/lacquered cloth and eventually they will start leaking light.  I am not sure if I should tackle this by leaving the lens extended all the time and so ensuring that any small leak there might be will leave a significant mark on the film, or whether I should leave the camera closed unless I am actually taking a picture and so hastening then point at which then light starts leaking in.

The other main niggle is the position of the shutter release button.  When holding the camera, my finger does not naturally fall on the release button and I find my finger searching for it - not exactly helping to 'hit' the decisive moment.

Third niggle - the viewfinder.  It is small.  So small I can barely use it while wearing my spectacles.  This is a reverse Galilean finder - it produces a small image in the same way that a telescope does when you use it back to front.  having a built-in viewfinder in a consumer camera was a fairly new idea when the Vito II was designed - Zeiss Ikon were still using folding Newtonian finders on the equivalent (Nettar and Ikonta) cameras.  This viewfinder is much the same as the viewfinder in the later Vito B.  It was only when the Vito B had been in production for several years that larger comfortable to use finders were introduced (as they were on the new Vito C range that eventually replaced the Vito B range.

Apart from those three niggles, I like using this camera.  the rewind knob is better than a standard SLR mini lever for rewinding the film and I also like the film advance knob in place of a rapid wind lever.

Zeiss Ikon Icarette

The Icarette (sometimes mistakenly called a Jcarette because of the fancy "I" used) is a very old line of cameras, first produced by ICA before the mergers that formed Zeiss Ikon in 1926.  ICA itself was formed in 1909 by an amalgamation of Carl Zeiss Jena and others.  My Icarette has a lens serial number of 1089397, a body number of Q***42 and a shutter serial number of 1065884.  This means the lens was made towards the beginning of 1930, the body in early 1929 and the shutter in mid 1929.  This suggests that this particular Icarette was made in 1930 - 1931 at the latest.  The design is fairly old-fashioned for this date - not self-erecting and the focussing is on the baseboard, not the shutter assembly.  It does, however, have a rim-set shutter which was very much state of the art for 1930.

I also have an earlier Icarette, from around 1919, made by ICA.

Icarette

The Icarette is a thin camera when closed (35mm), but measures 180 mm long by 85 mm wide.  This makes it far too big to be a pocket camera.  To open the camera, you must press a slight bulge in the leatherette close to the film winder.  When opened, the base board has to be brought down to its position by hand - no springs here.  Then the lens/shutter has to be pulled forward until it locates on the focussing control.  The focussing control is a lever on the side of the base board which moves the shutter a total of less than one cm giving a focussing range from infinity to somewhere around three feet (the nearest marked position is for seven feet but the lever moves beyond this).

This camera has two viewfinders - a small brilliant finder and a cruder Newtonian finder with the far frame attached to the lens so movements of the lens are accounted for.  I do not find brilliant finders very easy to use but they have the advantage of allowing the camera to be used at waist level - much more discrete for candid or street photography.

The lens has a rise and fall mechanism and if you use this, the Newtonian finder is essential.  The rise and fall mechanism is there to allow the photographer to photograph tall things like trees and buildings without tilting the camera.  This means that there will be less distortion in the final picture.  The fact that the camera has a rise and fall mechanism means that the image circle must be much larger than the negative, which in turns means that vignetting will be minimal.

As mentioned above, the lens is a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar lens made in 1930.  This is the classic Zeiss lens which is still in use today.  It has an aperture range from f4.5 to f32 and focusses from around three feet to infinity.  The shutter is a Deckel Compur rim-set shutter made in 1929 with speeds of 1 second, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/250 seconds as well as B and T (B keeps the shutter open while the shutter release is depressed, T keeps the shutter open until the shutter release is pressed again).  The shutter also has a self-timer but as the general advice is not to use these on old cameras, I do not know how long the delay is.  I would suspect around ten seconds.  This shutter is the crème de la crème of shutters and still works well over eighty years after it left the factory.

The camera is fitted with two tripod bosses - one the base board close to the hinge and one part way along one of the edges.  Both are 3/8 Whitworth threads with a 1/4 Whitworth insert - the insert being held securely in place by a grub screw.  With my sample of this camera, someone has tried to remove the 1/4 inch insert without removing the grub screw damaging both the insert and the grub screw - they did this to both tripod bosses.  However, both still fit my modern tripod and hold the camera securely.

This camera takes 120 size film (or BII as Zeiss call it).  The spool carriers are hinged which allows easier loading of new film (and removal of exposed film).

This camera after a quick clean:

Some sample pictures:

These are fairly soft.  This is partly because focussing is inaccurate - the entire lens standard moves on a track and the distance between one metre and infinity is very small.  helical focussing which became the norm soon after this camera was made gives more control.  Partly it is soft because it did not matter.  Photographs were normally printed as contact prints so the picture would have been 6cm by 9cm (a bit smaller than I have them here).

Grantham Street, Lincoln

Old Wall, Lincoln