(with apologies to Neuweiller & Sons brewery)
Cosina Voigtlaender Bessa R and coffee
My first truly new camera in about
20 years. Voigtlaender Bessa-R 35mm rangefinder with
interchangeable lenses using the Leica M39 thread mount. Pictured
here with the Voigtlaender Color Skopar 35mm f2.5 Classic with a 39mm
to Series VI adapter and Series VI lens hood. I also have a right
hand grip installed along with an Abrahamson Mini-Soft Release on the
shutter button to accomodate my larger hands. The camera is very
light and compact and with the 35mm lens and factory lens hood it can
actually fit into a pants pocket! I got the whole package from Steve
Gandy at CameraQuest.
This is test shot with the Bessa-R and 35mm f2.5 Classic. Shot on Walmart (Agfa) 200 ASA color print film. Only manipulation of the scans was to resize them, no unsharp mask in Photoshop. All were shot wide open at f2.5 at speeds up to 1/2000 sec. One can actually see that one clear bottle is half full of clear liquid.
Bessa-R with FED 50 collapsible, vintage Contour brightline finder.....and coffee
The basic reason for getting this machine is that I'm tired of
using
ex-Soviet cameras that need constant mechanical attention. The
only ex-Soviet cameras of mine that are truly dependable are my Kiev 4
and 4A in Contax mount. Problem is that my eyes are not that
great (which is why I like rangefinders) and the external viewfinders
are kinda squinty. The Bessa has a much nicer multi-focal length
finder with automatic parallax correction built in so my tired eyes can
see better. Also, since it has the Leica thread mount I can use
some of the superior Zeiss derived optics from the former Soviet Union
instead of the inferior Leica optics <hah>.
This is test shot with the Bessa-R and 35mm f2.5 Classic. Shot on Walmart (Agfa) 200 ASA color print film. Only manipulation of the scans was to resize them, no unsharp mask in Photoshop. All were shot wide open at f2.5 at speeds up to 1/2000 sec. One can actually see that one clear bottle is half full of clear liquid.
Bessa-R with FED 50 collapsible, vintage Contour brightline finder.....and coffee
For an even more compact package, I
mated the Bessa-R with a FED 50mm f3.5 collapsible lens that I bought
from Fedka.
Normal
collapsible LTM lenses should not be used with the Bessas, but this
lens has a flat spring infinity lock and a shorter lens tube. The
infinity lock doesn't foul with the camera body and with a couple of
O-rings installed on the tube I can safely collapse the lens into the
body. Without the grip I can really drop this into a pocket like my late Zorki C
Full frame shot with the FED-50 on Kodak BWC400 C-41 B&W. I used a medium yellow filter and and exposure of f3.5 @ 1/1000 sec.
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Full frame shot with the FED-50 on Kodak BWC400 C-41 B&W. I used a medium yellow filter and and exposure of f3.5 @ 1/1000 sec.
A crop of the SAME scan.