Realgrumpytyke

By Realgrumpytyke

Voigtlander - favourite classic cameras

Here is my favourite classic camera or, rather, some of my favourite classic cameras. A blipper mentioned Voigtlander recently to which I replied I had three, which prompted me to get them out of the display (but not yet dusted off, as you might see on the black ones).
Certainly my favourite has to be the 'barn-door' Vitessa L at front right. It is just such an incredible piece of engineering thinking. It has a superb lens (Ultron) and works well, including the uncoupled light meter, though the slow speeds stick a little - a common problem with classic cameras and one I intend to remedy when I have time - probably take me the best part of a day.
The T and L to the left are other bits of original 'Voigtlander' thinking, carried on by Cosina in Japan after the demise of the originally Austrian, then German, camera producer (the world's oldest). Neither of these two cameras has a viewfinder. The T has a very good rangefinder. The L does not as it was intended for use with super wide angles like 15mm and 12mm. The T has a 35mm f/2.5 Color Skopar mounted, the L a 90mm f/3.5 Apo Lanthar - near Leica quality lenses for a fraction of the price - with the appropriate Voigtlander viewfinders.
Some say the Vitessa is built as well as a Leica - it is certainly exceptional.
The two 'interlopers' at the back? The CX-2 and CX-1, great pocketable point-and-shoot travel cameras from Cosina, are respectively father and grandfather of the similar Russian Lomo LC-A beloved of 'lomographers'. The Lomo is pretty well a copy of the CX-2 though the Russians replaced the neat 'lens opening', by rotating the housing round the lens, with a more conventional lever.
Having got these out I'll hopefully be using each for a blip over the coming weeks - got to load up some cassettes with decent B/W film.
Olympus Pen E-PL3. Yashica 55mm f/2.8 macro legacy lens 

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