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.

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Blog copyright by John Margetts, 2014
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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.

Agfa Silette

Agfa Silette

Agfa used the name 'Silette' for a large range of camera over many years.  Mine is the Silette type 4 from (I think) 1958.

It is a basic 35mm camera which seems to be well made.  It has a Pronto shutter and an Agfa Color-Agnar f2.8 lens.  It has a double viewfinder - the opaque window adds brightness to the frame lines in the clear window.  There is no light meter nor a rangefinder in this model although both were available in other cameras in the Silette range.

As this is a typical basic camera, there is little to say.  The shutter is a Pronto four speed shutter - 1/30, 1/60, 1/125 and 1/250 seconds plus 'B'.  It also has a timer delay which works well (even though the general advice is not to try the self timer on old cameras).  On a fifty-plus year old camera, this shutter seems to be at least adequately accurate.

The lens is an Agfa Color-Agnar lens - not a lens I have come across before.   This is a Crooke's Triplet lens - originally designed in 1893 in England but still in use today.  My camera came with a cassette of film already loaded, so I tried the camera out with that.  The results were decent - especially when I removed the cassette and looked at the inner surface of the lens which was very dirty (but without any trace of fungus).  This lens is clearly coated - there is a blueish/purplish hue to the glass - but the lens is very susceptible to flare.

One fault with this particular specimen is the light seals.  These have obviously failed at some point and have been replaced with black wool.  This is not a technique that works.  I shall shortly replace the wool with black foam.

The viewfinder is clear with bright-lines for framing the picture - including parallax lines for close-ups.  There is a film speed reminder on the rewind knob.  This is not as easy to adjust as it could be - you need to lift the rewind knob (as if rewinding the film) and turn a knurled ring underneath the knob.  A sign of the age of this camera is the range of ASA speeds that are available - 14, 16, 17, 40, 100, 250, 650 - you would be hard pressed to find ASA 16 film now.  Kodachrome slide film was made as ASA 16 in the 1950s - the time of this camera - and Kodacolor print film was ASA 32.  Ilford monochrome film of the time had a speed rating of about ASA 160.

The exposure counter in at the centre of the base showing on the back of the camera.  Alongside this is the serial number - VI 2457 in my case.

The camera is marked as "Made in Germany" (i.e. West Germany).  There is sometimes confusion about Agfa cameras as Agfa sold the rights to the names and designs in North America to Ansco who continued to make "Agfa" cameras for some time separately from Agfa Germany.  This is not an Ansco camera.

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.

Voigtlander Vito B and Vito BL

Voigtlander Vito B & BL

Voigtlander Vito B

Vito B (BL lower down)

This is a very nice camera from the 1950s (1956 for this camera). It is well designed and well made – no plastic (at least not visibly) and the pressings and millings are neatly finished. It is a pleasure to look at and to hold.

lens:  Color-Skopar

focal length:  50 mm

apertures: f3.5 to f16

focus range: 0.8 m (2.6 ft)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Prontor SVS

speeds: 1 s to 1/300 s

flash: PC socket

film size: 35mm

Voigtlander's Vito B was their first rigid 35mm camera - made in Braunschweig, Germany.  It was brought out in 1954 and was a Vito II replacement for the excellent .  It was discontinued about 1961.  The Vito B spawned a number of other cameras - Vitomatics I and II and the BL series.  These had built-in light meters and, in the case of the Vitomatic II, a coupled rangefinder.  The price new in England was around £24 for the model with the Prontor SVS shutter.  In 1959, a new model was brought out with a larger bright-line viewfinder.  The camera is only 115 mm wide, 70mm front to back and 70 mm high. This fits well into the hand and is small enough to fit into a coat pocket. It also has a lens hood which adds a further 25 mm to its length. This is the successor to the Vito II folding camera and is both slightly smaller and slightly heavier than its predecessor but with the disadvantage for carrying that the lens does not fold away. The main structure of the camera is die cast with pressed chrome plated covers.

The film advance lever falls nicely to the thumb in use but travels well to the front of the camera which is a bit awkward in use. There is also an accessory shoe on top which is designed for a rangefinder as much as for a flash gun. There is a PC  (for Prontor Compur) socket on the underside of the lens for a flash gun – the camera can synchronise for bulb flash (M) and electronic flash (X). The flash synchronising lever is also used to set the shutter delay timer (V for Vorlaufwerk). The shutter is cocked by advancing the film – an improvement over the Vito II which had a manual cocking lever on the shutter housing. It is also an improvement over the later Vito Automatic I where the shutter release also cocked the shutter during the first part of its travel.

The lens is a 50mm Color-Skopar with a maximum aperture of f3.5. This lens is based on Zeiss Ikon's Tessar lens – four elements, two of which are cemented together and air gaps between the others. These lenses are surprisingly good, especially if you stop the lens down to f8.   Focussing is by way of the whole lens assembly so image quality is not reduced as you focus closer.  The lens takes a 32 mm push fit filter or lens hood.

Focussing is either scale focussing which relies on you knowing the distance to the subject or zone focussing with two settings – o which focusses the lens to between 15 feet and infinity and ߜ which focusses the lens to between 8 and 18 feet. Both of these need the aperture to be set to f5.6 or better.   Voigtländer  produced a small rangefinder to fit on the accessory shoe which allowed accurate measurement of the distance but this was not coupled to the focusing and needed the user to read off the distance from the rangefinder and then set that distance on the focussing ring.

Behind the lens is a either a three speed Pronto or an eight speed Prontor-SVS shutter.  There is also a shutter delay timer but on old cameras it is supposed to be a bad idea to use this – although on my 56 year old camera it works fine on fast speeds (1/100, 1/300) but not at all on any of the slower speeds. The shutter works quite well at faster speeds from 1/300 to 1/25) but is very slow indeed on the slower speeds – 1/10 second is actually above five seconds! This probably means that the shutter mechanism needs a service but I have to ask if the cost of this is warranted. I have found on other cameras that the shutter works better after it has been used a few times. When acquiring a new old camera it is worth bearing in mind that the cameras has probably been sitting unused in a drawer for the last thirty years or so.

The film chamber opens in an unusual way – first you open a small door in the base and then the back will swing open.  This is designed to make inserting a film easier and works quite well but for some reason Voigtländer abandoned this on subsequent cameras. Fitting the film is extremely easy. The film sprocket holes fit over a large toothed wheel which serves to cock the shutter when the film is advanced. For this reason, an empty camera will not allow you to fire the shutter. When the film is fitted, you have to turn a toothed wheel on the underside to set the number of frames available. This number appears in a window just above the lens and shows the number of frames still available – the camera counts down from 24/36 to zero. There is also a strange prong just below the lens – this appears to be a foot so the camera will stand on a flat surface when using the shutter delay timer but no mention is made of it in the manual.

The view finder is very small being 8mm in diameter at the rear and 10x16 mm in the front. This means the view is rather smaller than real life  at about two thirds but is adequate and certainly bright enough.

The pictures that this camera produces are good even by modern standards.

Vito BL

The Vito BL is based on the Vito B mark II - that is, the version with the larger viewfinder. There are two changes. One is the addition of a light meter to the camera. The second is these of an EV enabled shutter (I am given to understand that some Vito B cameras also had EV enabled shutters but I have never seen one). The shutter is a Prontor SVS - the same as the Vito B above.

The light meter uses a selenium cell which does not need a battery to work. Selenium light metre's get an undeservedly bad press predicated on their losing sensitivity over time. While this is theoretically correct, I have yet to see a selenium meter that was not still accurate, even with meters that are over 55 years old.

With the design of the meter, film speed (ISO) is set by turning a knurled knob on the back of the top plate. This moves a series of numbers into view. Each series is identified by a letter - each letter represents a different ASA/ISO rating. B is 12 DIN/12 ASA, C is 15 DIN/25 ASA, D is 18 DIN/50 ASA, E is 21 DIN/100ASA, F is 24 DIN/200 ASA and G is 27 DIN/400 ASA. For those who are not aware, films speeds double with 3 added to the DIN rating. 24 DIN is twice as fast as 21 DIN. With ASA/ISO, double the film speed has double the ASA rating. 400 ASA is twice as fast as 200 ASA.

Meter set to F - 24 DIN or 200 ASA/ISO

To read the meter, turn the knob on the back until the letters representing your film speed comes into view.  You then point the camera at the subject and look at the needle in the meter display. It will be sitting in either a white or a black zone. At the left edge of the zones are the EV values. The EV value adjacent to the zone the needle is in is then set on the EV range on the shutter - to do this, you have to depress a chrome lug on the left, besides the EV 2.

Knurled meter knob below meter

The EV enabled shutter has the usual shutter speed and aperture rings but they are linked by a third ring - the EV ring (EV stands for Exposure Value). When you set the EV value from the light meter, you link a range of shutter speeds to a range of apertures. You can then turn the shutter speed ring to select a combination of shutter speed and aperture but only those that give the required exposure (it is rather like P mode on a digital camera in that a respect). See three photos below. The range of EVs available are from 2 to 18. EV 2 is 2 seconds at f/3.5 and EV 18 is 1/300 seconds at f/22 A summers day in England is usually going to be about EV 14 to EV 15.

In every other aspect, this Vito BL is the same as a Vito B.

EV set to 11 - 1/60 second and f/5.6

EV set to 11 - 1/200 second and f/3.5

EV set to 11 - 1/4 second and f/22

Photos from the Vito B

Camera

QSS-30

Oddfellows Hall, Lincoln

Camera

QSS-30

Busker in Lincoln

Camera

QSS-30

Roof tops in Lincoln, Abbey ward.

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