Voigtlander out for a stroll in the park

[Matthew Currie]

I threw a roll of Superia 400 in my recently acquired ten-buck Voigtlander

Ultramatic CS, and went for a stroll in the park down in South Glens Falls, NY.

I forgot to take along a meter, but despite guesswork, no low shutter speeds and

a nasty cloud of coating delamination in the otherwise gorgeous Septon lens, it

worked, and rather well too. That Septon is no slouch even now.<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

It's the Hudson up here, but they drink it!<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

Swim in it too!<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

From a distance, Glens Falls looks like not such a bad place after all. I suppose it isn't, really.<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

Ms. Moose is getting into the seasonal spirit<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

This camera is massive, and pretty easy to handhold, but the front-mounted shutter button is stiff, and it's hard to hold level when fussing with it. And like most Voigtlanders of its era, for some reason they just assumed you'd never use it out of its case, and has no strap lugs! Despite its quirks, I can't help liking it.

 

Among its virtues is a little feature I've not seen on other cameras, and the apparent simplicity of it makes me wonder why the *** not? On the lens, instead of the usual DOF scale, is a pair of little red prongs, which open and close with the aperture ring, thus giving you an instant and easily read DOF estimate without having to put your glasses on to see which little has marks are lined up. Someone was thinking there.<div></div>

[michaelging]

THanks for sharing the photos and the information on the Camera Matthew. I really like the fall photos as we do not have the same kind of leaf drop here in Phoenix.You are right about the lens,even now compared to modern cameras. I do think you miss labeled one of the photos as being "colorful Moose" instead of "self-portait" :)

[mark_wilson4]

Fantastic results! Those people knew how to make lenses, hey?

[mark_wilson4]

Today I got results from my Bessamatic with Color Skopar. This camera is less fancy than the Ultramatic, and the lens is less fancy than the Septon. I have trouble focussing it, but also like the orange DOF pointers. About a third of the roll was blurry from my focus technique (And its a reflex!?!?!)

 

This film is Kodak High Definition 400, only because I couldn't find Superia. Hurrah for Voigtlander!<div></div>

[mark_wilson4]

And a pond...<div></div>

[Matthew Currie]

Mark, those look all right to me. I also found focusing a little difficult on the Ultramatic because although the finder is fairly bright, it seems all to be in pretty good focus even when it isn't, and the split image is very subtle. I had to second-guess the finder sometimes, which is odd with an SLR.

[mark_wilson4]

Ain't it weird? That doughnut shows you exactly when it is in focus, but I get thrown by the larger view. Presumably if you use the camera a lot, you get used to it.

 

I sometimes use a 40.5mm Proxar on it, and maybe with the restricted depth of field, one gets little hint that you are out of focus because the focus circle is of such a limited extent.

 

I also enjoy the "heft" that you mentioned earlier...feels solid in the hand.

[thomas_vaehrmann]

As a long-time Bessa-shooter I'd favour the Septon, a really good lens. The Bessamatic or Ultramatic have a fresnel screen so you can only use the split-image or the micro-prism ring in the center for focusing. Only the Bessamatic-m had a frosted ground-glas for focusing which gives a darker image but you can see the sharpness of the whole picture without any tools in the center. The drawback of these cameras - as the central-shutter and the dof-marks indicate - is that it is over-engineered and a horror for the service.