Balda Jubilette

This camera dates from the very late 1930s - the model was introduced in 1938.  The camera is very similar to my Balda Baldina - the Jubilette was a cheaper option but it is still well made.  The Compur shutter has a serial number that should be able to date the camera but the serial number is anomalous - '0016596.  The '00 signifies the size of the shutter - size 00 - and the next five digits are the serial number.  Usually, the number on Compur shutters will have seven digits starting with a '4' or '5' ('4' for 1938, '5' for 1939 or the war years).  Occasionally, Compur shutters are known with five digit serial numbers.  One thought is that the serial number refers to a batch of shutters specially made for Balda rather than being a part of Compur's standard serial number system.

Balda Jubilette, folded

lens:  Baldar

focal length:  5 cm

apertures: f2.8 to f16

focus range: 0.5 m to infinity

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Compur

speeds: 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/300

flash: not available

film size: 35 mm

The camera is a folder of a fairly standard design. The lens standard is opened by a button on the top of the camera - the lens snaps forward with some vigour into its operating position. The struts holding the lens and lens board in position are nicely chrome plated and both the lens and the lens board are held rigid.

Balda Jubilette in the open position, seen from the top.

As the shutter is a Compur, the cocking lever moves clockwise (which is upwards when holding this camera for use). This is the opposite direction to Gauthier (Prontor) shutters which cock anti-clockwise. The shutter release button is on the lens board by the hinge.  On later versions of the Jubilette, this was moved to the camera body.  This is on the left of the the camera and needs to be operated with the left hand. I prefer this arrangement as it allows more space for my right hand to hold the camera steady. Several of my folders have the lens board hinged on the right which leaves my right hand being very cramped.

Camera from the front, ready to use.

The lens is a Baltar (it was de rigueur to end a lens name with the letters '-ar' - Nettar, Novar, Elmar, Radionar, Tessar, Skopar, Frontar and so on) which was made for Balda by one of the independent lens makers.  Balda did not make their own lenses and may have used more than one manufacturer to make their 'own label' lenses for them.

The controls on the body follow the Baldina layout. In the middle of the top is a very small reverse Galilean viewfinder - it is slightly to the left of centre. On the left of the top is the rewind key - this dates the camera to an early Jubilette as later versions had a rewind knob rather than key. On the right of the top is a frame counter. This counts up - so it tells you how many pictures you have taken and needs to be set to zero when you load a new film. This counter is covered with a yellow plastic disc (probably celluloid given the age of the camera). Beside the frame counter is a small brass button which releases the lens board.

Balda Jubilette in the open position, seen from the bottom

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blog copyright by John Margetts, 2014
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the base of the camera is the film advance knob - it is opposite the frame counter on the camera top i.e. on the right-hand end of the base.  Beside the film advance knob is a small button which must be pressed and released in order to free the advance mechanism inside the camera. This button is not sprung (at least not with my camera) and drops down under gravity.  This is important as it means that the film must be advanced with the camera held the right way up: the button dropping down again locks the advance mechanism when one frame has been advanced, if you hold the camera upside down (which makes turning the knob easier) you can advance right to the end of the film.  Note: examining photographs of Balda Jubilettes on Google has lead me to think my camera is missing a spring and a top to the button. The button that I have is threaded inside - indicating that a screw-on cap is missing and I suspect that a coil spring used to sit between the missing cap and the camera body. On the other end of the base is a 3/8 inch tripod boss. This has a large adaptor in it with my camera reducing the boss to 1/4 inch Whitworth which is the modern tripod standard.

Balda Jubilette - rear view

The back of the camera is a hinged door. this has the maker's name embossed in the leatherette (Balda plus a small logo) and in the centre of the back is an aluminium plate printed with a depth of field table (Tiefenschärfentabelle). The catch for the back is spring loaded and a little bit too small for comfortable use with my large fingers (but a big improvement on my Voigtlander Vito II which opens itself). Fastened to either end of the catch is a small carrying handle which is a bit too small for practical use. The front of the camera has the model name embossed in the leatherette (Jubilette). In the front of the lens board is a hinged peg which acts as a leg to stand the camera on when taking self-portraits.

The body of the camera is made of steel - demonstrated by the fact that it is starting to rust in [places. Inside, the film guides and covers over the mechanics are made from brass sheet painted a semi-matt black. The take-up spool is also painted brass. 

Focussing is smooth but has the disadvantage of having the distance pointer beneath the lens. This means that you have to turn the camera to set the focus - not a major problem on an entirely manual camera. Worse is the aperture scale - the white paint in the stamped figures has almost entirely gone making the scale very hard to read. Even worse is the position of of the adjusting pointer. This is very close to the lens board. Getting your finger in there to adjust the aperture means you have no chance of reading the scale. This fault lies with Deckel (the maker of Compur shutters) as they must have known their shutters would be used on folding cameras.

The body of this camera is identical to that of the earlier and more expensive Baldina. It is the details that are cheaper: the viewfinder has no parallax adjustment (although this was available as an extra), the lens is a Baltar  triplet, the frame counter is more functional (it lacks the Baldina's cover and ornate pointer), the exposed metal is painted black rather than being chrome plated. On the plus side, it has a body shutter release (although I think the Baldina also had one by 1938) which is much easier to use than the extended lever on the shutter housing that my 1935 Baldina has.

Jubilette in use.

In many ways, this is an archetypical 35mm folder. My Voigtlander Vito II is much the same size and has a similar too-small viewfinder. The biggest problem I have with cameras of this date is the viewfinder. I just cannot use them while wearing my glasses. Without my glasses I cannot see the image through the viewfinder although I sometimes think that having to concentrate on general outlines and shapes improves my composition - perhaps looking at the details gets in the way.

I have been using cameras with self-cocking shutters lately and I keep forgetting to cock the shutter - this does nothing for hitting that 'decisive moment'! I also press the door opening button on the right hand end of the top of the camera with my right fore finger instead of the shutter release button on the left. If I was using this camera exclusively, that would soon sort itself out.

I have had two problems with camera; both are probably a result of its age. The first is the shutter release mis-locating itself when the lens door opens.  This might have been down to my slightly depressing the shutter release button when opening the door. It can certainly be cured by closing the lens door and opening it again.

The second problem is the mechanism that ensures that you wind on exactly one frame - this is exactly eight sprocket holes. The shaft with the sprockets has eight sprockets on it, so advancing one frame needs the sprocket shaft to rotate exactly one revolution. When Balda designed this camera they had to work around patents owned by Leica, Zeiss Ikon and Kodak (and probably others) so they could not use an obvious and sensible system. The system that Balda designed involves pressing a button as soon as you start to advance the film and then immediately releasing the button and allowing it to 'pop-out' again while you continue to wind-on the film. On my particular camera it is necessary to give the camera a sharp slap to get the button to 'pop-out' again. I am not sure if the button is supposed to be sprung or if the camera relies on gravity - either way, it does not work without encouragement. This is not a major problem but it does slow things down a bit.  See note in blue above.

What has surprised me is that I have found the depth of field table on the back of the camera to be quite useful. The results of using it can be seen in the close-ups of flowers below (after next Wednesday).

In conclusion, this camera is still very usable. It has no bells or whistles and requires the user to think for himself but for me that is no bad thing.

Sample pictures:

First a few pictures that show how well this 76 year-old camera still works.  Focus is good (it is a scale focus camera so I did not really know this until I saw the pictures), little distortion (the arch in the second picture is bowed itself - it is not the lens), and colour rendition is fine even though the lens design pre-dates the use of colour film.  I am very pleased with these.

Lincoln Stonebow

Coloured primroses - distance for the focus was guessed together with a small aperture.

Bright Lincoln street - no flare

Barge on the Witham in Lincoln

Musical tight-rope walker in Lincoln city centre - a small amount of flare from the white wall.

Now a few pictures that are not so good.  First, this lens will not cope with photographing into the light. The lens is not coated at all (as was usual in 1938) and is showing significant flare.  As with using all old cameras, I need to follow my father's advice when I was ten or so - "always keep the sun behind you."

Sunny day in Lincoln.

This next picture shows what often happens when you use the first film in a very old camera.  Winding the film causes a small amount of static electricity on the film's surface.  This static electricity attracts any dirt lurking inside the camera, showing here as many black specks in the sky.

Lincolnshire field with a dirty sky.

This last picture shows how difficult it can be guessing close distances.  The thing to do here would be to carry a yard-stick and accurately measure the distance but that is not how I work.  I guessed and relied on the depth of field keeping everything in focus. It did not work here!

Berberis flowers.

Balda Baldina

This is a very nice folding camera from 1930s Germany.  It is one of the first cameras to use Kodak's 35 film cassette - this was made soon after Leitz made the Leica (1925) and Zeiss Ikon the Contax (1932).  It follows Kodak's lead in producing a folding camera unlike Leitz and Zeiss Ikon who both made rigid 35mm cameras.  The camera is fairly small - it measures 120mm x 82mm x 35mm when closed and 120mm x 82mm x 85mm when open.  It is almost exactly the same size as Voigtlander's later Vito and Vito II cameras but a bit heavier. The covering seems to be leather rather than leatherette.  This is my second Balda camera - the other being a Baldessa from 1965.

lens: Schneider Radionar
focal length: 5 cm
apertures: 3.5, 4.5, 5.6, 8, 11, 16
focus range: 1 metre to infinity
lens fitting: fixed
shutter: compur leaf
speeds: 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/300
flash: no connector
film size: 35mm

Balda Baldina - front view

This camera had been stored somewhere not particularly dry before I bought it and the finish showed the results. The leather was very dry and dull, much of the nickel-plated steel has rusted and the moving parts were all very stiff.  I attacked the leather with Bestbeloved's leather restorer and it is now a bit more subtle and has a nice sheen. Moving parts have had a drop of oil/naphtha mix (I mix 2 parts clock oil with one part naphtha to produce a freely running oil. This flows into hinges and axles easily - and when the naphtha evaporates the part is left with a very small amount of oil) and now move easily. I have yet to deal with the rust but will do so when I have finished the test film. I shall rub down just the rust and then treat it with Loctite Rust Remedy. This leaves a durable black finish which I shall leave as-is. The last thing to note, condition wise, is the presence of 'Zeiss Bumps'. Zeiss Ikon cameras are notorious for these and this is the first time I have seen them on a non-Zeiss Ikon camera. they are caused by the manufacturer using a different material for rivets than he used for the body. A chemical reaction will then be set up in the presence of damp resulting in the build-up of corrosion products between the metal of the body and the leather covering. These 'Zeiss Bumps' occur on the lens door and in the leather by the take-up spool.

Zeiss Ikon and Voigtlander used die-cast aluminium for their camera bodies which made for strength and lightness with the added advantage that they were corrosion resistant.  This camera seems to be made from steel.

The outside is a mixture of leather and nickel plating and where the nickel has worn, the camera is rather rusty. My Zeiss Ikon Nettars from the same decade were leatherette and paint and where the paint has worn you can see the aluminium.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blog copyright by John Margetts, 2014
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

top view

Balda's use of steel and nickel plating would have made the camera cheaper to make.  I assume that this also meant that the camera was cheaper to buy but it would not have been cheap. With a Compur shutter, it would have been aimed at a serious amateur photographer.

The camera is quite well appointed.  It has a 'proper' viewfinder rather than the metal frames that Zeiss Ikon's Nettars and Ikontas had.  This is small (as was usual even on expensive cameras) and is a reverse Galilean finder (that means it is like a telescope backwards as it makes things small). This viewfinder has a remarkable addition - a parallax adjuster. When you have set the focus on the lens, you put the same distance setting on the viewfinder and the viewfinder moves up or down accordingly. For infinity, the viewfinder is fully up and as you dial in nearer distances, the viewfinder lowers itself. Apart from this camera, I have only ever seen this on expensive rangefinder cameras.

On the top plate along with the viewfinder is the film rewind key and the frame counter. This last is beneath a hinged cover and counts from zero to 36.  This is a count-up counter, the user setting the counter to zero when loading a film into the camera.

Beside the viewfinder is a small button. Pressing this will release the hinged lens cover and the lens will spring forward automatically - it does so with a reassuring 'snap'.  The shutter leaves are between the lens elements so focusing is only front-cell focusing (i.e. only the front piece of glass moves when focusing, not the whole lens. This causes a slight degradation of the image with close-up work. For landscapes it makes not a jot of difference).

base view

The film advance is on the bottom of this camera - possibly to circumvent other manufacturer's patents, certainly not because it makes it easier to use. Advancing the film is not as straightforward as turning the knob (no lever advances at this early date).  Leitz, Kodak and Zeiss Ikon had 35 mm cameras on the market when this camera was designed and each had patented every aspect of camera design they could.  They also pursued patent infringement vigorously. The outcome of this is that manufacturers trying to bring new models to market had to find workarounds to avoid being sued. In this case, the film advance is locked until you press a button on the base of the camera. This must be released as soon as you start turning the film advance knob or you will advance more than one frame. To make this as hard as possible, you first have to push in the safety lever, then press the small button and then turn the advance knob.

Also on the bottom of the camera is a tripod boss.  This is the original 3/8 Whitworth thread rather than the more modern 1/4 Whitworth.  This is to one end of the camera - it seems to have taken camera manufacturers a long time to work out the point of balance of a camera.

Balda Baldina - folded

Inside is pretty much as you would expect even from a modern 35 mm camera - a sign that this layout was well designed from the start and not patented.

The hinged back has effective light baffles and so there is no need for foam light seals - nothing to go gooey and messy with age and nothing to start leaking light. In the centre of the back is the pressure plate to keep the film flat against the film gate. To one end is a nickel-plated spring to keep the film in place on the sprockets. Loading film is easy. There is a spring on the take-up spool under which the end of the film goes. No particular shape of film leader is required but the modern standard leader works fine.

When open, the door hinges on the left, leaving plenty of room for the right hand to have a firm hold. Many folding cameras hinge on the right leaving a restricted space for gripping.  Voigtlander's Perkeo and Vito cameras hinge on the right.

When holding the camera for use, the shutter cocking lever  must be moved upwards (this is a Compur shutter, a Gauthier shutter (Prontor) would need the lever moving downwards). The shutter release provided by Compur is hidden by the folding struts and cannot be reached. To overcome this, Balda have added an angled extension which can be reached by the middle finger of the right hand. There is also a socket for a standard cable release.

position of extension lever

Adjusting the shutter speed is easy - this is a rim-set shutter and you turn the outer ring until the required speed is aligned with the index mark. Altering the aperture is not so easy. The control is close to the door and between the folding struts. This is quite do-able but requires looking at the camera from the front.

I have finished the test film which raised a couple of things.  Firstly, firing the shutter. The extension lever that Balda have added to the Compur shutter release travels a long way before it fires the shutter. I found this rather awkward and difficult to hold the camera steady while doing so. Secondly, rewinding the film.  I have no instruction book for this camera and I have to work things out for myself. I assumed that the button that released the film advance mechanism would also release the rewind mechanism. Wrong! My attempt to rewind the film resulted in me pulling all the film out of the cassette. This meant a trip to Snappy Snaps to ask them to remove the film in their darkroom which they did. I now know that to rewind the film you have to lift the film advance knob and leave that other button alone. Oh well - this is all a part of the fun of collecting old cameras. Tomorrow, I shall collect the developed film and post a selection here.

OK. The test film is back - and none the worse for me trying to rewind it the wrong way - kudos to the staff at Snappy Snaps.  I am impressed with this camera. It was made in 1935 (plus or minus a month or two) and has worked flawlessly. The lens shows no sign of having been coated, which would have been very unusual in 1935, but is not particularly susceptible to flare. There is some flare visible in some of the pictures, but I have a habit of shooting into the light which would have been virtually unheard of in 1935 for the very reason that is causes flare.  The lens focuses well and produces high contrast colour pictures. The lens will have been colour-corrected to some extent as that is necessary for using panchromatic black-and-white film and the lens clearly has no problems with modern colour films.

There are marks on some of the negatives - basically, there are scratches which show up on the prints as black marks. I am putting this down to the damage caused when I attempted to rewind the film. It only affects a few of the negatives, most of them being fine.

The pictures:

Shooting to the south on a sunny day (that is, into the sun), hence the flare.

Shooting to the south again, but on a dull day - a small amount of flare.

Shooting to the north on a misty day. No flare but some mist visible in the upper parts of the picture.

Shooting to the south on a sunny morning - no flare as such.

Shooting to the east on a sunny day.

Shooting in a heavily shaded alley - good contrast and colours.

Perkeo I

This is a nice, medium format camera from Voigtlander. It is a direct competitor to Zeiss Ikon's Nettar 518/16 - that is, at the lower end of the enthusiasts' 120 cameras - and is a replacement for the Bessa 66. This is a folding camera which fits nicely in a (large-ish) pocket. It measures 125 mm wide x 85 mm high x 40 mm deep (closed) or x 95 mm deep (open). It weighs 483 g. In 1952, Wallace Heaton were advertising this camera at £22/11/6 for the model I have here (that is in old money and equates to £22.57 in new money. That is equivalent to about £1,400 in 2013 values).

Voigtlander Perkeo I

lens: Vaskar

focal length:  75 mm

apertures: f/4.5 to f/16

focus range: 3.5 feet to infinity

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: pronto

speeds: 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/200

flash: F synch only

film size: 120

The lens is a Voigtlander Vaskar - 75 mm focal length and maximum aperture of f/4.5. The Vaskar is Voigtlander's cheaper lens (a more expensive Perkeo I came with a Color-Skopar lens) and has a triplet construction (again, comparable to Zeiss Ikon's Nettar on the 518/16). I have yet to see the result of using this camera, but it has a reputation for having soft focus in the corners. This is not a fatal flaw for me as I have no need for sharp focus in the corners although I am aware that others find this unacceptable.

The shutter is a Gauthier Pronto - four speeds being available of which only 1/100 and 1/200 are of any interest. This shutter has a delayed timer (Vorlaufwerk) which, unusually for a camera of this age, works well. Flash synch is provided for fast flashbulbs - I intend to try this camera with electronic flash to see if this works as well.

The shutter release is standard for the early 1950s - primary release on the shutter housing and a secondary release button on the camera's top plate, linked to the primary release by a lever.  There is also a cable release socket which is between the two - on the hinged door.  The secondary release has a double exposure prevention mechanism fitted requiring the film to be would on before the shutter can be released a second time. On my camera, this does not work very well at the moment. When I had a similar problem on my Franka Solida II, it sorted itself out after a few shots.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blog copyright by John Margetts, 2014
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being a folding camera, there needs to be a mechanism to bring the shutter/lens forward, ending with the lens exactly parallel to the film. On my camera this is defective - a small strut has snapped half way along its length. When I received the camera, this folding mechanism barely worked and then very badly - the lens ended up at quite an angle to the film plane.  This needed attention with naphtha to flush out dust and dirt, lubricating with clock oil and repeated folding/unfolding to free up the many joints in the struts.

Perkeo I - folded

It now unfolds easily and seems to put the lens parallel to the film plane, judging entirely by eye. The test film will tell me how parallel things actually are. The broken strut does not seem to matter here. What does not work too well is closing the camera. to close properly, the lens must remain parallel to the camera body otherwise it will not fit into the available space. I suspect that the broken strut is there is achieve this. Without this strut, my thumb has to do its duty. 

As an aside, I have tried a new technique with this camera. When lubricating small parts, it is quite hard to apply a small enough amount of oil to exactly the right place. Getting that small amount of oil into the linkage is a matter of working the linkage and hoping. This time I have diluted the clock oil two parts of oil to one part of naphtha to produce a very runny oil. Because the oil is diluted, once the naphtha has evaporated I am left with 2/3 of the amount of oil I applied. Also, because the oil is now very runny I am hoping that the oil will run between the surfaces of the linkages more easily before the naphtha evaporates to leave a very small amount of oil in place. So far, the only downside I have seen is that the naphtha is very good at wetting surfaces and has carried a small amount of oil over all the surfaces around the linkages. I am not convinced that this is a bad thing.

Perkeo I - showing top plate

Before loading the test film, there are two things I need to do. The first is to use compressed air to blow dust out of the inside. Moving film through a camera generates a small amount of static electricity and this will pull any dust onto the film. After that, I need to check the bellows for light leaks. To do this, I wait until dark (about five PM at the moment) and shine a torch onto the bellows at close quarters. Viewing inside the camera, any light leaks will clearly show.  I have found one very large one. That broken strut I mentioned earlier has scored the bellows material and created a line on pin-pricks. These will need sorting before I try the camera. Otherwise, the camera is good to go.

Emi K 35

Emi K 35

The Emi K 35 was made by the Oshiro Optical Works in Japan in 1956.  It is quite an attractive and well made little camera but basic in the facilities it offers.

lens:  Fujiyama Eminent Color

focal length:  50 mm

apertures: 2.8 to 16

focus range: 3 feet to infinity

lens fitting: fixed

shutter:  own make

speeds: 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/300

flash: PC connector, X synch

film size: 35 mm

The camera is heavy, being made from die cast metal (presumably aluminium alloy) including the hinged back.  It measures 125 mm by 70 mm by 80 mm tall.  The main body is covered in black leatherette and the top and bottom plates are satin stainless steel.

The shutter release button is next to a raised part of the top plate and with my large hands it is a bit awkward to get my finger on it.  Film advance is by a lever.  In my camera, the spring that returns the film advance lever to its rest position is broken so it is necessary to put it back in place manually. However, the lever still advances the film and cocks the shutter, so this camera is quite usable.  

The viewfinder is small, but no smaller than Voigtlander were offering at the same time.  There are no frame lines in the viewfinder, so I assume the total image is what will be recorded on the film. On taking the camera apart to look at the broken film advance spring, I saw a square cut-out in the front of the top plate that is normally masked by the 'Emi K' logo on the front of the camera.  This suggests that a rangefinder was considered at some point in the design - either to be offered on another model or abandoned for this model.

One the left of the top plate is the film rewind which is a small crank (very small!) which is fairly difficult to use.  This crank pulls up to release the cassette for removal.  The only other thing on the top plate is an accessory shoe - a 'cold' shoe in flash terms.  For flash, there is a PC connector at the bottom of the shutter housing.

The lens is a Fujiyama Eminent Color lens.  There is a red 'C' on the lens bezel which I am sure indicates that the lens is coated (just about normal for 1956).  The whole shutter housing/lens assembly seems to be well designed and well made but feels a bit plasticky compared to Prontor shutters. Actually, the shutter housing is plastic which is not actually a bad thing so long as it is used thoughtfully.

The inside is as you would expect - a recess for the film cassette, machined guides for the film, a sprocket wheel to advance the film and a fixed take-up spool.  I am very much in favour of fixed take-up spools.  Zeiss Ikon and Ihagee both used removable spools and I spend too much of my time on my hands and knees retrieving the spool when using those cameras.  The camera back has the expected pressure plate (generously sized) and 'Zeiss bumps' in the leatherette.  'Zeiss bumps' are formed when the rivets holding components together react chemically with the metals used.  The back is aluminium alloy and I suspect the rWhitworthñ steel.

The base of the camera has a central tripod boss - 1/4 inch Whitworth.  There are no strap lugs on this camera - the manufacturers will have expected the user to use the 'ever-ready' case that will have been supplied with the camera.

Test photos

I was aware when I started that the return spring in the film advance lever was broken, but the mechanism itself seemed to work OK. As I used the camera it became apparent that the lever was not engaging with the internal mechanism properly and sometimes it took several sweeps to advance one frame.

Using this camera reminded me very much of using my Zeiss Ikon Contina Ic. They have a very similar size, shape and weight - I suspect Emi had the Contina in mind when designing the Emi K. Controls are minimal and are placed on the lens/shutter barrel. The viewfinder is nice and large and centrally placed. However, there are no bright lines for accurate composition.

The only problem I have had using this camera stems from the fact that the return spring  in the film advance lever is broken (as mentioned above). I initially thought that this would mean that I would have to return the lever by hand after winding on the film and otherwise all would be well. in fact, the film advance lever interacts with two sub-systems in the camera - the double exposure prevention mechanism and the missed frame prevention mechanism. Sometimes I would turn the film advance lever and nothing would happen, sometimes I could not turn it at all without pressing the shutter release a second time - this did not fire the shutter, it just freed the mechanism. I was never confident that the film was advancing properly. Although the rewind knob turned as I advanced the film - a sign that the film is moving - it did not turn smoothly. Looking at the prints, it is apparent that the film was not entirely moving as it should - there is slight overlap of frames - but the problem is not severe, just annoying.

Exposure of the film is fine, indicating that the shutter speeds are, at the least, close to the supposed values. I only actually used the faster speeds so I cannot vouch for the slower speeds - it is usually the slower speeds that play up first with old cameras.

Framing not quite right

Double exposure

This one is OK

Slight frame overlap

Ikonta 520

This is a medium format camera (i.e. takes 120 film) from Zeiss Ikon.  It is a half-frame camera - 6 x 4.5 cm negative - which is half of a standard 120 frame of 6 x 9 cm. The body serial  number tells me it was made in 1932.

Ikonta 520, front view

lens: Novar

focal length:  75mm

apertures: f/6.3 to f/32

focus range: 4'6" to infinity (that is the scale, actually about 4 feet)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Derval

speeds: 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, B, T

flash: n/a

film size: 120

The body is made from cast aluminium.  This body casting is shared between the Ikonta 520, Bob 510 and Nettar 515. It is quite hard to understand why Zeiss Ikon shared the body between three different camera lines instead of calling them all Ikonta (the oldest name) seeing as Bob, Ikonta and Nettar all come with a range of lenses and shutters and can be considered to be one range in effect if not in name.

So, this Ikonta.  It is an Ikonta 520 - more specifically, a 520E. The other variants are
520IT with a f4.5 Novar and a Telma shutter,
520F with a F3.5 Novar and a Compur Rapid shutter and
520L with a f3.5 Tessar and Compur Rapid shutter.

The lens is a Novar which is a triplet and performs surprisingly well once stopped down to f/8 or smaller.  Ikontas were also available with Tessars at a higher price and wider aperture Novars.  The Novar on this camera is quite a slow lens with a maximum aperture of f/6.3.  The focussing is front cell only, rather than the whole lens moving (giving not quite so good image quality) and the focussing scale is in feet indicating that the camera is an official import into the UK.

The shutter is an everset Derval (everset means it does not need cocking before firing as a Klio or Compur would).  This is a fairly crude (and so cheap) shutter with two blades only and only offers three speeds: 1/25, 1/50 and 1/100.  With a slow lens like this camera has, faster shutter speeds would have been superfluous, particularly with the slow, by modern standards, films available in the 1930s.

Detail of rim-set shutter adjuster on Derval shutter

The shutter is a dial set shutter which means that the speed adjustment is by a dial set above the shutter housing.  More modern shutters have a rim set adjuster which is a ring around the shutter housing.  This shutter does not have a V (=Vorlaufwerk) setting for delayed action and as is usual with cameras made before the late 1940s, there is no flash connection or synchronisation.

Ikonta 520, side view

As I mentioned, the maximum aperture is rather small at f/6.3 but the minimum aperture is surprisingly small - f/32 - so the range of exposures possible is still respectably large.

A standard photograph with this camera (as with the Bob 510 and Nettar 515) is in portrait format and in this orientation the shutter release is underneath the camera and is uncomfortable to use.  To take landscape pictures, the camera must be used on its side and the shutter release is on the side and easy to use.

The viewfinder is the cheap two frame style of viewfinder - a Newtonian finder.

This was an expensive camera in its day - according to Tubbs (Zeiss Ikon Cameras 1926 -39, published by Hove Camera Foto Books), it cost £4/10/0 new in the early 1930s and advertised by Zeiss Ikon in the British Journal Almanac for 1936 at £4/17/6.  That is £4.50 in new money but a week's wages for a working man would have been around £1/10/0 or £1.50. So this camera cost around a months income for a working man which is around £1,000 in today's money.

19/07/20123:  I have now finished my test film for this camera and the results are not good.  The lens is susceptible to flare (as I would expect on a lens from 1930 - coating of lenses had not been invented yet) and some of the flare is very strange, suggesting something other than ordinary flare - a glass defect, perhaps.

Blues festival in Lincoln Arboretum

One of our many buskers in Lincoln - very young but quite accomplished

Lincoln Corn Exchange in the Cornhill

Comparison between Ikonta 520, Bob 510 and Nettar 515:

These three cameras from Zeiss Ikon share the same aluminium casting for their bodies.  This makes them very similar cameras.  They all take 120 film and they all produce half-frame negatives of 6 x 4.5 cm.  The details, however, are different.  I shall give the differences between them one model at a time, starting with the oldest.

Ikonta 520

This camera was produced from 1931 and is using the old fashioned dial set shutter - the disc at the top with the word 'Derval' on it..  The adjuster for the aperture is at the bottom of the shutter housing and requires the user to turn the camera around so that the scale can be seen.  The lens is a Novar triplet lens.  There is also a leather hand strap on this camera and the catch to close the back is solid.

Bob 510

Next is the Bob 510 (sold in the UK as a Nettar 510).  This is a slightly later camera first produced in 1934 and has a more modern rim set shutter - the dial is now replaced with a ring around the shutter housing.  Shutter speeds and apertures are the same, but the aperture adjuster is now on top of the shutter housing, behind the speed selector.  This means that the user can adjust the aperture with the camera pointing at the subject.  Perhaps not a major advance  but will have been less frustrating to use.  The lens is now a Nettar rather than the Novar - still a triplet but a different design.  There is no hand strap on this camera and the catch for the back is less secure than on the Ikonta

Nettar 515

Last is the Nettar 515.  This is later again, 1937, and also has the rim set shutter.  The shutter is now a Klio (on non-Zeiss Ikon cameras known as Prontor) with more shutter speeds (up to 1/175 and a few slow speeds).  The aperture adjuster is still on top, behind the speed adjuster, and there is now a delay setting lever below the shutter housing.  As with the Ikonta, the lens is a Novar triplet.  This shutter requires cocking before use  and there is an ancillary shutter release button on the camera body.  There is also provision to fit an optional brilliant finder on this camera although mine does not have this.  This model also has no hand strap and it has the same catch as the Bob 510

All three together, oldest on the left, newest on the right.

Voigtlander Vito I

Voigtlander Vito

I have used as a title for this article 'Vito I' but the camera is actually the Vito - Voigtlander were not aware of the forthcoming Vito range at this point.  I already have an article on the Vito II here and much in that article applies here as well.  The two cameras are very similar as you might expect.  The lens serial number says the lens was made in 1945 which is also the probable date of manufacture - one of the first cameras to be made in war-ravished Germany.

lens: Skopar

focal length: 50mm

apertures: 3.5 to 16

focus range: 1 metre to infinity

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Prontor II

speeds:  1/5 to 1/200

flash: synchronised for bulbs

film size:  35mm

The camera is a folder and nicely compact when closed.  It measures 120mm by 70mm by 40mm closed and 120mm by 70mm by 80mm when open.  Closed, it nicely fits in a trouser or jacket pocket.  The only distinguishing mark on the closed camera is an ornate 'V' on the lens door and a fairly indistinct 'Voigtlander' is embossed on the leatherette on the back together with the model name 'Vito'.  There is also the country of origin embossed on the back which is 'Germany'.  As Germany is the English name for the country this indicates that it is an official import.  Strangely, for an official import, the focussing scale is in metres rather than feet, suggesting that Voigtlander were not fully geared up for export in 1945.

Vito top view

The top plate is very uncluttered.  There is a knurled ring at either end.  The right-hand ring is the film advance and the left-hand ring the rewind.  In the centre of the top plate is a very small, reverse Galilean viewfinder.  The eyepiece is only 5mm by 2.5mm.  The image seen is roughly 0.5 times life size.  This is very small compared to more modern viewfinders but it is more than adequate.  There is also a frame counter which counts up from one.  There is no accessory shoe (flash shoe) although one was available as an extra and fitted over the viewfinder.

On the rear of the top plate is a lever.  In the normal position (down) the film advance will only advance one frame.  When raised, the film can be advanced as far as you want and can be rewound.  The toothed wheel which is exposed by raising the this lever can be used to set the frame number to one.

The underside of the camera contains three items.  Close to the centre is a 3/8 Whitworth tripod boss.  A 1/4 Whitworth insert would have been available for the more usual tripod size.  There is also a button to release the lens door.  This is spring loaded and partially opens the door.  This door never sprung open under its own steam and from new they needed the user to fully open the door once it was released.

The third item on the base is two 'feet'.  These are little more than pins.  A third foot is on the lens door giving three feet altogether which allow the camera to sit stably on a flat surface.  This is primarily intended to allow group portraits using the self-timer.

When the door is opened, the lens comes forward on its bellows and locks in place.  The shutter release is on the top edge of the door together with a threaded socket for a standard cable release.

Vito - lens door open

The lens is a Skopar f3.5, 50mm lens.  This is the original version of the famous Color-Skopar and is not calculated for colour film.  However, it is intended for panchromatic film so should perform well with colour film.  See the test pictures below for details.  This lens focusses from one metre to infinity and has Voigtlander's usual two Happy Snapper settings - a circle for the hyperfocal distance at f5.6 (approximately five metres to infinity at f5.6 or 2.5 metres to infinity at f16) and a triangle which gives a focus range of 2.5 metres to five metres at f5.6 (ideal for groups).  This lens has no blue/purple tinge and so cannot have been coated as was normal post-WWII and so will be liable to flare.

The shutter is a Prontor II (which is the same as a Klio on a Zeiss Ikon camera) which is a pre-war design and was soon to be updated to the Prontor S.  This Prontor II has a PC connector and so must be synchronised for flash - I would suspect for fast flash bulbs (F: sync) but there is no indication of this on the shutter housing (my Vito II has a Pronto shutter and this is specifically marked F:).  Shutter speeds are 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/200 which is more than adequate.  The bezel of the shutter housing bears the shutter name - Prontor II - Gauthier's maker logo and Voigtlander's script name.

Vito - lens and shutter

There is a self-timer lever which we are always told not to use on old cameras to prevent damage to the shutter.  It barely works on this camera, taking 16 seconds to actuate the shutter and then needing a little help from my finger over the last two or three seconds.

This shutter needs cocking before use - the cocking lever moves from left to right and up to cock the shutter.

Apertures available are f3.5 to f16.  As there are no click-stops, you can set an intermediate value if you want to.  The only other item of note on the shutter assembly is a stellate lever.  I am not entirely sure what this is for but I suspect it was to do with the hinged yellow filter that the early Vitos were fitted with.  The shutter bezel has three screws in it that are also part of the filter assembly.  When production had used up the store of pre-war parts, the bezel no longer had these three screws.

Inside is where this camera gets interesting.  The design dates from 1939 and the camera was intended to use unperforated 35mm film.  As the film was unperforated, there are no sprockets in the camera.  Instead, the camera judges the film framing with a feeler roller as in an up-market 120 camera. I have been led to believe  by the Interweb that this camera was designed to use Kodak's 828 film which is unperforated 35 mm film with backing paper like 120 film. As the film came on a spool with backing paper (again, as with 120 film) there are springs fitted to the film chambers to keep the film tight on the spools. Actually, looking at the camera, there is no reason why the camera should not have used unperforated 35 mm film in a reloadable cassette - Leica and Zeiss Ikon made such cassettes for their 35 mm cameras. I have never seen a 1939 Vito - this would tells us immediately whether the camera used 828 film or a loadable cassette as 828 film would require a red window on the back of the camera to allow the user to see at least the first frame number. There is no red window on my 1945 Vito - was there one on the 1939 version? When production restarted in 1945, Voigtlander decided to modify the camera for modern perforated 35mm film (135 format).  The only real change is that the film gate (the rectangular opening that lets the light hit the film in the correct place) is reduced to 24mm by 36mm (originally it had been 30mm by 40mm).

The film take up chamber will take the standard spool from a 35mm cassette as a take-up spool or an empty cassette can be fitted which means that when the film is finished you can open the back and cut the film with the exposed part already in a cassette.

These pictures were taken with this camera on Agfa Vista plus 200 ISO colour negative film (details here): (the black wedge would seem to be a scanning artifact.  The frames all overlap about 1-2 mm and this overlap is also wedge shaped)

Cowslip close-up (from one metre away)

Lincoln Broadgate

Lincoln High Street

Lincoln Pottergate