Voigtlander Vito CLR

This is a development of Voigtlander's Vito range. That started as the folding 35 mm Vito of 1939. The folding Vitos were replaced by the rigid bodied Vito B in 1954 . The Vito B sired a small range - Vito BL, Vito BR and Vitomatic. Then in 1960 came the Vito C and a small range - Vito C, Vito CD, Vito Cl, Vito Cs, Vito CLR and Vito CSR and these were followed by the Vito Automatic (very different to the Vitomatic of 1957).

So, this is the third range of Vito cameras. The name, Vito CLR, tells us it is the C range with a light meter and rangefinder. Both the light meter and the rangefinder are coupled to the shutter.

Voigtlander Vito CLR  (C) J. Margetts

As I usually do, I shall start with a physical description of the camera, followed by notes on using it.

My camera is the third iteration of the deluxe version. Deluxe means there are slight variations on the layout of the top plate and I get a ring of black leatherette around the base of the shutter housing. The camera is somewhat bigger than the Vito B - it measures 125 mm by 85 mm by 75 mm and weighs xxxg. The main difference in appearance is that the camera now has a 'standard' hinged back fastened with a catch on the left-hand side. This is much easier to use than the Vito Bs somewhat strange back (although I like the Vito B's back for its idiosyncrasy).

On the top plate on the left is a recessed rewind knob. This has a turnable film reminder which can be set to either blue or yellow - sunlight or artificial light? Just right of centre is an accessory shoe. As was usual at the time this camera was made, there are no flash contacts so this is a cold shoe. To the right of the accessory shoe is the window for the light meter. This is reflected into the viewfinder so you can set the exposure without removing the camera from your eye.

Top plate - (C) J. Margetts

On the back of the camera there are three items. On the left is the viewfinder eyepiece. This has bright-lines directly on the rear glass with parallax markings for close-ups. Below the viewfinder and slightly to the left is a lever to raise the rewind knob and free the film advance mechanism. To the right of the back is the film advance lever. This moves through 220 degrees as far as I can judge and advances the film one frame and cocks the shutter.

The front of the camera is a lot busier. At the top is a chrome rectangular bezel. This contains on the left (while looking at the lens) the light meter lens, above the shutter housing the rangefinder window and on the right the viewfinder window.

In the middle of the front, just off centre, is the shutter housing. This contains a Gauthier Prontor 500 LK shutter. The outer ring on the housing is the focussing ring. This ranges from 1 metre to infinity (my camera is marked in metres rather than feet which usually means a grey import but the body is clearly stamped 'Made in West Germany' so it is a factory import). This ring has three Happy Snapper settings at 1.3 m, 3.2 m, and 10 m. The last one is the hyperfocal distance at f5.6 and the middle one is the hyperfocal distance at f16.

The next ring is the shutter speed ring - this adjusts from 1/15 to 1/500 and B. This is also used to set the film speed for the light meter - you need to depress a small black tab immediately behind this ring while setting the film speed. Behind the shutter speed ring is the aperture ring which runs from f2.8 to f22. this ring has two sizeable black tabs attached which makes finding the ring by feel easy - this is important when setting the exposure with the camera at your eye.

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In the centre of the shutter is the lens - a Color-Skopar f2.8 50 mm lens. This is front cell focussing so not ideal but will still produce excellent images. The lens will take 32 mm push fit filters and lens hood. To the left of the shutter housing (again, while looking at the lens) is the shutter release button. This is threaded on then underside for a standard cable release. Below the shutter release is a PC flash connector.

The base of the camera has then usual 1/4 inch tripod boss - slightly left of centre and slightly forward - and a frame counter. The frame counter counts down so tells you how many frames you have left.

Vito B (top) Vito CLR (bottom)

27/10/14

I have completed a test film using Fomapan 200 Creative. This has shown up a problem with the camera - one the seller drew my attention to - the exposure meter under-exposes by around two stops. So, using this camera I need to set the meter for ASA 50 rather than the correct ASA 200. I suspect this is due to the selenium  sensor in the meter deteriorating. This is something we are always warned about with old selenium meters but not something I have actually come across before (it could, as the seller suggested, be the setting ring having moved from its correct position, but I doubt it).

Because of the metering problem, the negatives are very thin and getting a good scan has been difficult. tonal range is not as it should be and there are very visible horizontal lines in each picture. There is also some evidence of a light leak in the pictures - it is on the left-hand side which means it must be from around the hinge of the back. In some pictures it is not very evident, so, perhaps, if the pictures were exposed correctly, it would not be a problem. There are no foam light seals in this camera to deteriorate.

Second test film results are below the monochrome results.

Cathedral from Broadgate, Lincoln

City Square, Lincoln

High Street, Lincoln

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Flowers to test the lens for close-ups.

Second test - with Agfa Vista+ colour film, processed by Snappy Snaps in Lincoln.  Negative density is fine, so the earlier problems were either lack of use or my developing of the film.

Petri 7s rangefinder

I recently made a decision to add a few rangefinder cameras to my collection. I have had a Minolta Uniomat for a few years and recently bought a Zorki 4. These two cameras represent the two lines of rangefinders that were available in the world of film.

The Zorki is from the line of interchangeable lens rangefinders that follow on from the Leica. Most of these are fairly straight copies of Leicas - all German patents were declared void after the end of WWII - with varying degrees of development.

The Uniomat is from the other - fixed lens - line. These fixed lens rangefinders are cheaper, though never cheap. Not having an interchangeable lens means they can - and do - have between-the-lens leaf shutters.

Petri 7s - front view [(C) John Margetts]

My collection of fixed lens rangefinders now numbers five (I am only including those with a coupled rangefinder) - Vitomatic II, Contessa LKE, Uniomat, Minister III and now this Petri 7s.

This Petri 7s is exactly the same size and shape as the Minister III - I could almost suspect they used a common casting for the body. The weight is not too different, either - 632g with a film loaded.

lens:  Petri

focal length:  45 mm

apertures: f2.8 to f16

focus range: 0.8 m (2.6 ft)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Petri MVE

speeds: 1 s to 1/500 s

flash: PC socket

film size: 35mm

The top plate of the Petri 7s is uncluttered. On the left is the rewind crank. This is the now standard fold-out crank which I personally find hard to use. The crank pulls up to allow for the insertion/removal of the film cassette.

Petri 7s - top plate [(C) John Margetts]

Just left of centre is the accessory shoe. By the time this camera was designed (1963) this was usually for a flash gun. It is a cold-shoe - accessory shoe contacts had to wait a further decade to become standard. To the right of the accessory shoe is the light meter window. This is fairly small - the actual window is 5 mm diameter - and incorporates a lens to make seeing the needle and mark possible.

Next along is the shutter release button. This is fairly large - no bad thing - and is threaded for a standard cable release. On the rear right-hand corner of the top plate is the frame counter. This is also a bit on the small size but still usable.

The front of the camera is dominated by the shutter housing. This is fairly large for a fixed-lens camera - the size is necessary because of the light meter sensor around the lens (as in the Yashica Minister III). 

Petri 7s shutter housing [(C) John Margetts]

The lens is a 45 mm f2.8 lens. It has no name on it apart from Petri. A green 'C' signifies that it is a coated lens - normal for the time - but does not tell us if it is multi-coated or single coated. As far as I can find out, it is a Tessar copy - four elements in three groups for the technical minded.

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The shutter housing has several controls on it. There are the expected control rings - focus, aperture and shutter speed - a flash synchronisation selector (X or M), a delay action lever, film speed selector and a PC connector for the flash. The shutter housing carries the name 'Petri MVE'. The shutter itself is a leaf shutter which means it is quiet in use - excellent for street work.

Above the shutter housing is an elongated window containing the rangefinder window and the viewfinder window. The viewfinder is a reverse Galilean finder (like looking through a telescope the wrong way) and the image is coloured a pale green. On the right-hand end of the front, just below the shutter release, is another window but one that does not seem to have any purpose - perhaps for a facility intended but not implemented. The viewfinder has bright lines with parallax markings. It also has a repeat of the light meter needle. This is much easier to see than the one on the top plate. It is not, however, easier to use as it is very hard to distinguish between the shutter speed and aperture rings by feel.

Petri 7s spurious window [(C) John Margetts]

The rear of the camera is plain. There is the eyepiece of the viewfinder and the film advance lever. The base of the camera is also plain. It contains a tripod boss in line with the centre of the lens (1/4" Whitworth is what I usually say, but it could well be modern enough to be 1/4" UNC. The ISO standard for tripod threads is UNC rather than Whitworth but there is not much difference between the two and Class 1A threads (to be tightened by hand) are sloppy enough to be interchangeable between Whitworth and UNC), and a recessed button to allow for rewinding the film.

Petri 7s rear view [(C) John Margetts]

Using the camera is quite easy. Setting the film speed for the light meter is a matter of rotating the black tab in front of the shutter speed ring - this is on the lower right of the shutter housing. The selected film speed appears in a small window in the shutter speed ring to the left of the fastest shutter speed. This is in both DIN and ASA and goes from 11 DIN/10 ASA to 24 DIN/200 ASA. (ASA is broadly but not technically the same as ISO) This seems a bit of a slow range by today's standards but when the camera was made, it would have covered all the films likely to be used.

To set the exposure, you can either set the required shutter speed and then rotate the aperture ring until the meter needle is centred, or set the required aperture and adjust the shutter speed ring, again until the needle is centred. The meter is a selenium meter which means it does not need batteries. These can deteriorate if left exposed to light for many years but this one is still fine (actually, I have never come across a selenium meter that was not fine - I think the deterioration thing is mostly theoretical rather than real-world).

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The focus ring has a large knob on the left-hand side which makes focussing with the left hand easy. There are two options for focus - scale focus or rangefinder. For scale focus, there is a big drawback in that there is no depth of field scale which makes my usual hyperfocal method impossible. The focus scale is in both feet and metres.

Using the rangefinder is not as easy as it could be. Petri have tried to make the rangefinder clear by colouring the viewfinder field a pale green and the rangefinder spot yellow. In my camera, the rangefinder spot is rather faint. In good light it does work, though, and it is quick to focus if you have suitable verticals in the frame.

The shutter release works easily without needing undue pressure but without being too much of a hair-trigger. The film advance moves about xx degrees and makes a very definite 'clunk' as it cocks the shutter.

The only other thing worth noting is that there are strap lugs at either end so I can carry the camera on a strap around my neck without needing to use the ever-ready case.

Test pictures.

I am testing this camera with Fomapan 200 Creative film - it is also a test of the film, to some extent as I have never used it before.  I have a 17 metre roll of film and can cut off the amount I need - I am using a 12 exposure length for this test.  This should save me quite a bit of money compared to buying colour film and paying to have it developed.  I should have developed the film in the next few days and will post the results here when I have done so.

27/10/14

As well as testing the camera and film, I am also testing my developing of the film - it is basically developed OK but I can tweak it somewhat in the future to improve contrast. There are some horizontal lines visible - these are scanning artefacts due to the emulsion being a bit on the thin side.

Flooded ex-gravel pit.

The Strait, Lincoln

Steep Hill, Lincoln

Angel Coffee House, Lincoln - hand held in natural light.

Wooden bridge to test the rangefinder - I focussed on the larger wooden upright.

Yashica Minister III

This is a rangefinder camera from Yashica that is pretty standard for its time.  It is almost exactly the same size as Zeiss Ikon's Contessa LKE of the same period and looks very similar as well. It is slightly larger than Voigtlander's Vitomatic II which is slightly earlier.

lens:  Yashinon-DX

focal length:  45 mm

apertures: f2.8 to f22

focus range: 0.8 m (2.6 ft)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Citizen

speeds: 1 s to 1/500 s

flash: PC socket

film size: 35mm

The camera is quite heavy - 656g including a 24 exposure cassette of film. This weight is going to tell at the end of a busy day photographing. It is 135 mm long and 85 mm high. The body is 35 mm thick which increases to 85 mm when the lens is included.

Yashica Minister II ((C) John Margetts)

 There are not many controls on this camera - it is entirely manual. On the top plate, starting on the left, is the rewind crank. This also pulls up to release the cassette for loading/unloading. Next to this is the accessory shoe. In flash terms, this is a cold shoe. next to this is the meter dial. This has two components: ASA setting and meter read-out.  ASA can be set between 10 and 400 ASA (new style). Behind this is the read-out for the meter. This gives you EV numbers between 4 and 18. In use, you choose the EV number the needle is pointing to and transfer this number to the outer most ring on the shutter housing. You are quite at liberty to ignore this if you want to - if you are using a hand-held meter, perhaps - or using the flash.

Next in line is the shutter release button, which is towards the front of the top plate. This is a small (by modern standards) chrome plated button, threaded for a standard cable release. Beside this is the film advance lever. Right on the right-hand end of the top plate is the frame counter. This is automatically reset when you open the back and counts up from 1.

The front of the camera has the viewfinder and rangefinder windows and the shutter housing with lens. The viewfinder is quite large and bright and has bright-line frame lines. In the centre of the viewfinder image is the yellow rangefinder spot. This is plenty large enough without getting in the way and is nice and bright. The rangefinder is coupled to the lens.

The shutter is made by Citizen - no model name is given - and it is a leaf shutter. The shutter housing is fairly large and central.  Partly, it looks large compared to Compur and Prontor shutters of the period as it is straight sided rather than stepped. There are three adjustment rings on the housing. The inner most, marked in green, is the focussing ring. This focusses from 0.8 metres to infinity and is marked in both metres and feet. Strangely, there is no pointer for this scale and the pointer position (where the pointer would be if there was one) is well to the right of centre. I suspect the designer thought there was no need for a pointer as the user is intended to use the rangefinder but I would be more comfortable if there was one. 

The outer most adjustment ring, marked in red, is where you set the EV numbers from the light meter. Even though the meter only offers numbers from 4 and higher, the ring is marked for 2. Setting this ring gives the user a range of both shutter speeds and apertures. Once the EV number is set, you can rotate the middle adjustment ring - the shutter speed ring - to change the shutter speed. Doing so also alters the aperture so that the required exposure is maintained. There is no direct method for adjusting the aperture, but there is a small window immediately behind the shutter speed ring showing the set aperture. If you want a particular aperture (which I usually will) you can alter the shutter speed until the desired aperture is displayed in the window.

Minister III - rear view ((C) John Margetts)

On the base of the shutter housing is a small lever which sets the delay timer. Although we are always told not to use this on an old camera, I can report that it works very well on this particular old camera.

In the front of the shutter housing, around the lens, is the light meter sensor. This is a selenium sensor and so needs no battery - there is no problem with this camera of having to find a replacement for an obsolete mercury battery. Many 'experts' will tell you that old selenium meters are too unreliable to be worth using. This is based on the fact that the light sensitive surface deteriorates with time and then gives low readings. While this is true, if the meter has been kept in the dark except when being used the deterioration over 60-odd years is so slight as to present no problems. I have many selenium meters that are 60-odd years old and they all give accurate readings and I shall continue to use and trust them. I doubt those 'expert' who decry using old selenium meter have actually tried using them.

The advantage of having the light meter sensor around the lens is two fold. Firstly, it is always pointing in the same direction as the lens and secondly, if a filter is used, it fits over the sensor and no adjustment of the meter reading is required.

The lens is a Yashinon-DX lens (I do not know the significance of the 'DX'). This lens has five elements in four groups and is reputed to give very good results. The focal length is 45 mm so the angle of view is very close to the human eye and accordingly will give natural looking results. The largest aperture is f2.8 which might not seems to be particularly fast, but, to be honest, I never shoot much wider than f8 so I just do not care that the lens does not go to f2 or f1.8

This camera has a PC (Prontor-Compur) connector for the flash and this is, idiosyncratically, place on the left-hand end of the camera.

The base plate of the camera has the usual tripod boss - this is the 1/4 inch Whitworth thread - and it is placed centrally behind the lens which means the camera will be stable when on a tripod. Also on the base is a recessed button to free the internals for film rewind and, at the opposite end, a recessed button for unlocking the back. I find this hard to use - you need to slide it to one side and then press it in. Perhaps with time I will find it natural, but not yet.

27/10/14

I have now completed my test film and I am quite impressed.  The camera is easy to use - the light meter works well as does the viewfinder.  I had some flare when shooting into the sun but I did not use a lens hood. Generally, the lens has good contrast and colour rendition.

I took the picture of the reed flower to test the lens at maximum aperture.  The flower is nicely sharp and the background not sharp - as I would want it.  These were all taken in October, so not a lot of sun about.

The cathedral from the footbridge over Broadgate, Lincoln.

The Strait, Lincoln

main railway line, Lincoln

Reed flower

Young Love