So I said I'd send some photos from the prominent

And here they are. Not a good camera. Just unsound, ergonomically. Maybe good engineering, but just needs to deal with the real world. Ultron 50mm f2, crap film from lomography (probably efke)100 ASA. Developed in Ilfosol (I must return to the pyro Bill Bowes gave me the recipe of). All with flash, other than the last

 

At our church today, we had a 30th birthday of this young woman. In her chair.

 

With her father, a lay preacher. You can see the bad development. Ahem.

And her mother

And with a friend. Again, bad developing technique

So a no flash shot of my beautiful wife. The camera is good, lens impeccable, but I wish it were a bit more user friendly

 

Regards, Arthur (apiarist1). I'm taking a breather from this site, till the coronavirus settles down. Keep safe.

arthur_mcculloch|2 said :

Not a good camera. Just unsound, ergonomically.

 

You don't feel you're being a little harsh in your comment, Arthur? While it's a heavy camera and somewhat over-engineered, I find it just fine in use. I particularly like the bright rangefinder patch coupled with the focusing adjustment on the top deck, in a perfect position to enable focusing with the left hand and triggering with the right. Fuji used a similar system with their Fujica rangefinders, in that instance operated by the right thumb. The only major feature I find lacking on the Prominent is a rapid-wind film lever, but that's by no means unusual in quality cameras of the era, and I don't consider it a major impediment. The joy of using such a beautifully constructed instrument outweighs it's few negative features, in my opinion.

 

For those members who haven't seen a Voigtlander Prominent, here's a basic pic.

 

One of these days I'll get around to putting a film through the Vitessa that I inherited from my uncle.

Even in a simple party situation, on dodgy film with quick-n-dirty processing, the Ultron shines: thanks for the examples!

 

I must own a half dozen Voigtlanders with the slower f/3.5 Skopar, one of my favorite lenses, so would really like to try an Ultron at some point. Unfortunately I don't have Rick's luck at finding collectible cameras at half the going rate: Prominents and Vito IIIs are typically a little too pricey for me considering the mechanical risk (and dearth of repair specialists) involved.

The "bad develpment" adds to the old timey effect.

I've never been a Voigtländer fan, though my college roommate from Kiel had one of their SLRs.

 

None of the pre-WWII cameras were particularly ergonomic. Like too many things, they were not user friendly, but rather "expert tolerant".

 

In those days you were expected to work for your results.;)

None of the pre-WWII cameras were particularly ergonomic.

 

Several of those designs continued well past WWII into the late '50s. My Dad brought home a Vito II he picked up from the PX while stationed overseas in '55, it became our family camera until he replaced it with a series of Instamatics and Polaroids in the late '60s. I took possession of it and still have it today, but it certainly is an ergonomic horror with its knife-edge controls, separate winding/cocking, awkward and rough shutter button, and microscopic tunnelvision peephole viewfinder (which also manages to scrape eyeglasses worse than any other camera ever sold).

 

What redeems the Vito II (and countless other Voigtlanders) is the 50mm F/3.5 Color Skopar. The way that lens would draw on Kodachrome was exquisite: a combination of subtlety and 3d pop like no other lens I've used. Its really nice on BW, E-6 and color negative as well, but was mind-blowing with Kodachrome back in the day. In recent years I find the later non-folding Vito models are better "daily drivers": same Color Skopar but larger non-scratching viewfinders, lever advance and more accessible controls. Killer bargains: fully operational Vito B can be had for $30- $40 (less than the soft case for a Contax T P&S).

Orsetto said:

What redeems the Vito II (and countless other Voigtlanders) is the 50mm F/3.5 Color Skopar.

 

Yes, in my experience it's certainly one of the better four-element three-group Tessar clones. Apparently the plain Skopar had been around for a while before Voigtlander released a version with improved coatings, and named it the "Color-Skopar". The modern Cosina-made "Voigtlander" Color-Skopars just use the famous name and are not derivatives of the original formula.

 

I have a couple of Color-Skopars in medium format focal lengths, and they really excel. Here's a link to a camera I really should use more often, a Voigtlander Perkeo I, with a very fine 80mm Color-Skopar f/3.5 lens.

 

In Praise of the Perkeo

The Voigtlander cameras in general, Prominent, Vitessa, Vito: great lenses. Someone should have given some thought to the design of the cameras. The rangefinder mechanisms are miserable to work on and adjust. The advance mechanism of the Vitesssa locks up easily, only camera that I've had film jam up while going through the sprockets. The rangefinder must be adjusted taking the top off the camera and has to be checked after putting the top back on. Need to re-adjust, take the top off again. I bought a second top, will cut it up if I ever need to adjust it again. The Vito- vertical alignment was off, affected the calibration- no practical way to set it that I could find. Ended up putting pressure on one side of a prism to force it into shape, like I did with the MUCH cheaper Kodak Signet 80. The rangefinder mechanism of the Prominent: after opening up one and finding the failure point: it;s just delicate, the screw used to set horizontal alignment sheered off when adjusting it. Edited March 11, 2020 by Brian

You should be able to adjust the RF by taking off the name plate and adjusting through the access ports. Until the thing broke. Had to open it up, find the broken screw, managed to find a replacement and calibrate it. After 12 years: the RF is still accurate, the shutter working- which required a good cleaning. I have the Prominent 1 and the 1a with lever wind. Great lenses, nice finish, pretty cameras in a "Studebaker" kind of way. But horrible to work on.

Some years ago I stumbled across a neat way of aligning superimposed-image rangefinders.

 

You need a cheap laser pointer, and just jig it to shine through the view/rangefinder window. Positioned correctly, the RF will split the laser beam into two beams that shine out of the two RF windows to converge at the point of focus.

 

This makes it easy to converge the two laser spots without constantly peering through the rangefinder. Unfortunately, it doesn't make the dim secondary image any easier to see by eye in actual use!

 

FWIW I checked over the old Vitessa. The slow speeds below 1/15th didn't work reliably any longer. It took about an hour and a half to remove the front lens group, get access to the slow-speed train and get it operational again. The speeds are still a bit slow, but at least they work every time now.

 

That's one step closer to actually taking a picture with it!

Edited March 12, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

I am a fan of the Voigtlaender consumer cameras. They were a formidable competitor to their brethern..Zeiss Ikon and Kodak (Nagel) . As many mentioned the Skopar and color Skopar were fine performers. I have a quite a few of the bottom feeders. I truly love the Vito II. My PC background is one of the three I own. I have the first model Vito (I) sprocket-less which has focus and advance/release problems with an uncoated Skopar in a Compur shutter I bought it originally for the case (excuses excuses) The other two are color Skopars one with an early blue tint in a Compur Shutter and the other in a Pronotor S. Of the successor Vito B model models I have both the small and large finder versions. I have the somewhat rare 2.8 Skopar on the small finder. Thanks to someone on this forum I made an effort to acquire a Vito B RF too. One of the earliest acquisitions, I received from my father-in-law was a coveted Vitomatic IIIb with the F2,0 Ultron. So I'll shut up for now... obviously I like them and while they are guilty of fiddly controls and small finders. All of them still perform Ok.

These 1950s consumer models were competing with the Zeiss Ikon Contessa series who had the nobler calling. The Kodak Retina models were probably the best quality of the three, I have way too many of these consumer grade German classics.. Mea Culap Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa

 

 

Heavy Metal ....Porn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agree on the lenses side. Even the Lanthar is a fine triplet. And do not forget the Perkeo series.

 

I should also add mechanical silkness, which to me is the Voigtlander signature.