Voigtlander Brillant w/ Voigtar Lens & Sample Photos

<p>I bought another Focusing Brillant. This one didn't have the Heliar lens that is on my other Brillant, it has the lowest level 3 element Voigtar lens. I had wanted a Lubitel, but my informal poll here showed that nearly everyone hated them. That in itself should have made me go buy one just to see. I may yet do that.</p>

<p>This camera is in much nicer condition than the first Brillant, and has the side door w/ yellow filter and extinction meter inside. Pretty neat. If I still smoked, it would be a handy place to put a couple of Camels or something. The mirror is shot, just like the other camera, but I have some small front surfaced mirrors coming that I'll cut down. My attempt to show what the view looks like when looking down at the focus screen failed because my little P&S digital wasn't up to it. To call it a focus screen is a misnomer anyway, as all you have to focus with is that tiny dot in the center. You can do it w/ the aid of the swing out magnifier, but it isn't fun. Otherwise, everything is in focus all the time. Eventually I am going to pull the brilliant prism out of there and replace it w/ a standard focusing screen, but that will take a little doing. For now, it works.</p>

<p>I loaded it w/ Tri-X after checking the speeds, and slipped my push on series hood w/ yellow filter on, and headed out. That was a mistake, as I should have checked to see if the hood vignetted. It did, which surprised me, as it was fine on the other camera's Heliar lens. So I learned something there. Always check everything, even if it seems redundant. A lot of the shots were underexposed due to my forgetting to reset my meter from the last camera, and I used a fresh batch of D76 which turned out to be way too active. Next time I'll let it sit 2 days instead of one before developing film. So, we are going to be seeing grain AND vignetting. I wish I could say this was the first time for this combination, but alas, it isn't. The Voigtar is a good lens. Who knew? Real sharp, perfect for B&W, but no, it is nowhere near as good as the Heliar. Stilll, very capable. These cameras are a lot of fun to shoot. Very small and light for a TLR, the sports finder feature is very handy, and I like the Bakelite bodies now that I'm used to them. The hood and many other parts are metal anyway.</p><div></div>

<p>Camera</p><div></div>

<p>Front</p><div></div>

<p>Accessories</p><div></div>

<p>Back</p><div></div>

<p>Top View</p><div></div>

<p>sample photo 1</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo 2</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo 3</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo 4</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo 5</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo Six</p><div></div>

<p>Sample Photo Seven</p><div></div>

<p>One of my favorite things to do is grab Linda when she has just come in from work, and tell her that I need one more shot to finish the roll. Then, I have her sit inside where the light is really lousy. I want to see how lenses handle this bad lighting, and I catch her short because I don't want any smiling faces fouling up my judgement of whether it's a decent shot or not. Or, I just like to mess with her. Not sure on that one. The Voigtar did just fine. Taken at about 1/30 at f4.5, and hand held. I took the hood and filter off for this shot, so for an uncoated lens w/ no Y. filter, it is contrasty enough for me.</p>

<p>Too bad about the flare on the Ferris wheel shot above. I'll probably just reshoot it.</p><div></div>

<p>Amazing what can be done with a plastic box.</p>

<p>Bravo.</p>

<p>The photos are wonderful. They have the look I love.</p>

<p>Great pictures from the Brillant Steve. I love the ferris wheel, flare or no (actually I can't see it) and the vignetting is kind of nice. I had a Brillant once, it was probably the first camera I managed to clean the lens and get the shutter working without wrecking it. Sadly there was a bad light leak, perhaps I'll dig out the shots and post them at some point.</p>

<p>To see one of them in such clean condition is a joy and even if the Heliar is a much better lens, I personally would have been more than happy with your results!</p>

<p>Steve,<br>

Little known secret. If you really want old Soviet TLR...look for Komsomoletc. According to the legend it was built on the machinery confiscated from Germans after WWII on just renovated after blockade LOMO. They switched completely on Lubietel in 1949. But Komsomoletc is optically superior however scale focusing. </p>

<p>Nice work Steve!</p>

<p>Great, once again, <strong>Steve</strong>; the quality from the Voigtar is surprising. The images certainly have that "retro" look, probably helped by the Tri-X/D-76 combo; I really like the minimalist purity of "one", and the ferris wheel is cool. Love those old bakelite boxes...</p>

<p>Love the old quality from that lens. The Brillant is an odd beast, typical Voigtlander that has a few, or a lot, of quirkiness. The fact that they put a Heliar lens on this little cheap camera is quite amazing.<br>

I can't focus with the spot on mine for some reason, and I'm really jealous that you still have the accessories!</p>

<p>Question Steve, is there a focusing scale on the lens?</p>

<p>Nice shots Steve. Didn't you know that vignetting is the in thing these days? If you don't believe it, just ask your nearest Hipster.</p>

<p>John, here's the Ferris wheel from the Heliar lensed camera. This is not with the same lighting conditions, nor the same point of view, but it is the same film, developing, and scanning workflow.</p>

<p>There is indeed a focusing scale on the lens. But in typical Voigtlander fashion, as Tony noted, it's a little difficult to use because the numbers are so tiny. You could certainly scale focus it though and not deal w/ the teeny focus patch. I don't want to give the wrong impression, you can focus it if you pay attention, but it's just off putting that when you look down into the hood, everything is in focus all the time. It's probably this way because the first Brillants were all scale focus models, so that facet didn't matter. They really should have just put a ground glass in there when they went to the Focusing models, but that's Voigtlander! I'm surprised yours had a light leak John. They have that typical German, double light trap design on the back. Even though they're Bakelite, they're very well made.</p><div></div>