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.

Kodak Brownie Vecta

Kodak Brownie Vecta

Kodak had a long series of Brownie cameras.  These were the cheap and cheerful range and varied greatly over time. 

This article is about the Brownie Vecta which was made in the UK and presumably only available here.  I was given one of these for a birthday present when I was was eleven or twelve years old when it was a strikingly modern looking camera.  It was designed for Kodak by the British industrial designer Kenneth Grange and its 'natural' format is portrait as that is what Kenneth Grange assumed it would mostly be used for.

The Vecta was only in production for three years (from 1963 to 1966).  It is basically a grey plastic cuboid with a central lens and a viewfinder in one corner.  The shutter release is a white bar underneath the lens.  It takes 127 film which is hard to find nowadays but is still available (see Ag-photographic for supplies).

The lens is a simple meniscus lens with no focussing.  I have not been able to find out what the focal length of this lens is but it is significantly wide-angle for 127 film. It works by having a very small aperture - f14 - which gives a large depth of field. The big downside of this is that the camera has to have a slow shutter speed to compensate.  Kodak colour film produced at the time that this cameras was current had a speed of ASA 64 so we probably looking at a shutter speed of around 1/30 second.  My test film for this camera shows reasonable image quality at a print size of 4" by 6" (100mm by 150 mm) which is as large as they would have been printed in 1963.  In fact, the surviving pictures that I have from August 1968 were printed at 21/2 by 4 inches at which resolution the quality is fine.

Kodak also produced a 'supplementary' lens that fitted over the fixed lens that allowed close-ups to be taken.  I had one of these which had to be used with the printed instructions to get acceptable focussing distances.  This did not work too well as distances became critical and the viewfinder produced parallax errors so I never had a real idea of what I was actually photographing.  I gave up on using the close-up lens fairly quickly.

This camera was easy for a child to use - I certainly do not remember any problems in using it at age eleven or twelve.  There are indentations in the cube to facilitate holding the camera steady - and with a shutter speed of 1/30(ish) a steady hand is essential. I really enjoyed this camera as a child and still found it nice to use. The position of the shutter release and the fact that it is a bar rather than a button takes a bit of getting used to but nothing untoward. It was probably easier for me at age eleven as I had not then become used to using more sophisticated cameras and a bottom shutter release was all that I knew.

Test pictures from this camera:

Baggholm Road, Lincoln

Busker, High Street, Lincoln

 At this size they look OK but when enlarged (to beyond the size that was anticipated by the designers) the defects show up.  When putting the first roll of film through a "new" old camera, it is usual for the film to attract dirt from the recesses of the camera.  This shows up as black specs on the final print.  These pictures have instead white specs and very pronounced grain which suggests a film or processing fault.  I cannot tell which, but I am sure it is not the camera.

Busker, High Street, Lincoln - enlarged to show marks

Old Cameras

Part 1

Old cameras have probably lain in a draw for a considerable number of years. As they lie the lubrication dries and the moving parts get settled into one position. Dust collects inside and out and has a tendency to reinforce the settled position. The dry lubricant means that moving parts are likely to be sticky and will resist moving.

The first thing I do with a “new” old camera is clean it. I tend to use spray lens cleaner on all exterior parts – there is nothing in it to damage either lens or case, but take care around gaps in the shutter housing. There has to be holes and slots for the controls to access the insides and we do not want the cleaner getting into the mechanism. First I brush off dust and lose dirt. In some ways, the more dirt the better- it indicates the no one has used inappropriate methods to clean the camera for sale.

I also carefully brush the insides – Care! With some cameras, the shutter is exposed (always with SLRs). Shutters should not be touched at all. Leaf shutters are very delicate and will stop working if touched. Focal plane blind shutters are not quite so delicate but still should not be touched.

When clean, I try the controls – but carefully. It is rare for an old camera to come with its manual – not unknown but rare. Sometimes there are specific ways to carry out adjustments. For this reason, I always obtain a copy manual from the internet – there are several sites that have them available. Fed cameras, for instance, must have the shutter cocked before the shutter speed is adjusted and some Voigtländers have a release that must be pressed before setting the shutter to B. In the absence of a manual, use common sense. Never force anything – if a camera part will not move easily, it probably won't move at all.

When I have tried all the controls and seen that there is nothing drastic wrong, I try to shoot a dummy picture. The shutter will not fire unless it is cocked and there are various ways in which the shutter is cocked. In most modern cameras, the film advance will cock the shutter but older cameras have a variety of methods. If the shutter will not fire, assume it is not cocked before you assume it is broken.

In addition to cocking the shutter, many cameras have interlocks to prevent double exposures. My Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex II must have the shutter mechanically cocked, have a film in the camera AND have the film wound on after the last shot. An empty Ikoflex II will not fire! My Voigtländer Vito B has the shutter cocked by the film moving past a sprocket wheel. An empty camera will not fire – but you can rotate the sprocket wheel by hand to cock the shutter.

Do not force any controls as cameras are delicate, sophisticated devices. Yet some controls will need a firm touch if the camera has not been used for 30+ years. Older shutter mechanisms have two separate timing systems. Short shutter speeds are usually easy to set but 1/30 down to 1 second (or sometimes 2 or 5 seconds) have a separate mechanism with a bigger spring – these resist the touch much more than the short settings do – but still do not force them. You should be able to feel the difference between mechanical resistance and mechanical seizure.

If the controls are stiff, I find it helps to pretend to take pictures – cock the shutter, release the shutter, repeat – repeatedly.  Do this for various combinations of shutter speed and aperture. I might spend 20 minutes doing this repeatedly and this frees the shutter and aperture well. Not only does this dislodge any dust it also redistributes the remaining lubrication.

Once the camera mechanisms seem to be working as they should, it is time to try a film in the camera. It is possible to get 135 (35 mm) and 120 (6x6) films from most camera shops and 127 films can be obtained over the interweb. You need to used the common shutter speeds (1/60 up to the maximum available) and a variety of apertures – but avoid using the timer function if one is available. It helps when the time comes to assess the resulting pictures if you have kept notes on the settings for each frame.

When assessing the pictures, there are a number of things to look out for. Before looking at the actual pictures, check the shutter is fully opening (I have had a focal plane shutter that only exposed half of each negative) and the film is advancing as it should. If the film is not advancing as it should, that is either a faulty film advance or a faulty photographer. I have inadvertently taken pictures on 120 film as 6x6 but advanced the film as if it was 6x9 – that was an option I had not understood and is possible on my Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex II, Zeiss Ikon Nettar and Franka Solida II.

Assuming that the shutter and film advance are both working ok, it is time to look at the pictures. If you have used a reliable external light meter the pictures should all be exposed correctly – look at the negatives to assess this as the prints will have been adjusted as well as possible by the printer. I always use an external light meter even when there is a built in meter as this checks the built in meter as well. If the negatives have a good density then you can assume that the shutter and diaphragm are working at least reasonably well.

Is there anything else to look for? Yes. Focus, for starters. If the camera has been dropped or if someone has fiddled with the lens, then the lens might not be capable of proper focus. If the lens is mechanically ok, then you can see if there is a problem with dirt or moisture inside the lens – both will cause the image to be softened. If that is ok, then compare the sharpness with the lens wide open (i.e. with the largest f number) with the sharpness with the lens closed down. Most lenses work best with the lens stopped down a couple of stops and a poor lens will work best with the lens stopped down considerably.

One last thing – colour fringes. Old lenses (pre-1930) were designed to work with black and white film that had no sensitivity to red light. That made lens design very simple as the lens only had to focus blue light. When used with colour film, a very old lens will often produce noticeable colour fringes around objects and some softening when used with modern black and white film.

So, you have cleaned the camera, tried a film and found that the camera is actually very good. What now? Use it! Using a vintage film camera is very different to using a modern digital camera. They are not point-and-shoot – you need to establish the exposure, set the controls, focus the lens, cock the shutter and then take the picture. It is much slower and has the advantage of making you consider what you are doing to a much greater extent than is true for using a digital camera. Also, it is so much harder to manipulate the picture once it is taken so the need to get it right in camera is much greater. I find this much more satisfying than using my digital camera and should be improving my technique.