Collector or user?

[belgiumreporter]

With so many great slr's in the collection it is often difficult to pick one to run some film through. With digital it is easy to just take a few shots put the card in the reader and your shots are on display on the screen. However with film there's the need to make at least 12 shots (or 8 on larger formats) then process the film and scan it. This hurdle often prevents to go out and give one of the film camera's a go. In my opinion it's a bit like classic cars, nice to see in a museum, but so much nicer to see and hear them running (or better drive them).
Here's a few wich can't really be called collectable camera's (only time will tell) but nevertheless they just beg to be used. I've used the F4 more than once, the others still need to be tested but the R8 will be in a short while and i'll publish the results.

[John Farrell]

I have a Pentacon D loaded with film, at the moment.

[paulhofseth]

I just aquired a very unfashionable VSL2 which has the mechanical shuttertimes besides automatic times AND it actually still works.But to run one of the films in my fridge through it owning only the one QBM 50mm would be a waste of opportunities. Better to use the film in my Contax ST or the R-8 where I do have a selection of focal lengths. AND wait til the rain stops (or bring out my Nikonos).

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[belgiumreporter]

Nov 10, 2022 16:21:45 GMT -5 paulhofseth said:

I just aquired a very unfashionable VSL2 

Some time ago i bought a VSL1 when it arrived i thought it was broken, but some how it repaired itselve . I mainly bought it for the Voigtländer Color Ultron 50mm to see how it would compare to the Zeiss Ultron 50mm.

But there is nothing they have in common exept for the Ultron name. The Zeiss with its concave front element renders the images quite different from the Voigtländer, there's allso a significant difference in price between the two.

[paulhofseth]

As I understand the situation, Rollei bought Voigtländer when the ZIV unit collapsed and went on to produce their new products when thy closed the factory in Braunschweig and started in Singapore. They licenced multicoating "HFT" and the Planar name and design from Zeiss and labelled some of their Planar lenses "Ultron" in order to keep the goodwill gained by the earlier designs. As you remark, the negative curve of the front lens (Icarex) Ultron was not kept, enither was the design of the early Ultrons of "Prominent" fame.

And also according to the standard Alpa book by Lothar Thewes, Pignons ordered some samples of the Singapore versions of the 35mm Distagons and 135mm Teletessars which they did not find adequate for Alpa standards, so the quality control might have been less stringent than in Braunschweig and Obercochen Although they went on to make a sucess with mr.Waasches tiny Rollei 35 made in Singapore.

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[paulhofseth]

Not much on this forum ad the results of Braunschweig and Singapore lens renaming exercizes and the sucessive apparatus flora hosting them.

When searching for Icarex posts I found two from 2009 with dead links onwwards

There was not just the original Prominent (& Vito) Vogitländer Ultron transforming into a Zeiss.named Ultron with different construction and then to a Rollei with Planar innards keeping the name- but also the Colour-Skopar rehoused and renamed Tesssar at the time that various other Voigtländer constructions were relabelled "Zeiss" during the ZIV period.

p.