Vito back from the brink

[Stephen]

Voigtlander Vito 1939

An original seventy two year old Voigtlander Vito 35mm camera from 1939/40, which used 35mm un-perforated film, there are no sprockets, the original intention was to use Kodak 828, but Voigtlander packaged 35mm un-perforated film in special Bessapan cassette rolls for a while, but returned to 35 Kodak film cassettes after the war. Later versions were made in the late 1940's/early 50's.


Voigtlander open


Bessapan Film signs.

This is the early type Vito that had a yellow filter built in, on a hinge around the lens focusing ring, but it is missing on this example. The mounts are there along with the catch.


Skopar lens front where the filter fitted.

Time, corrosion, and rust had not been kind to this Vito camera, it was a basket case. The bellows were unattached, the shutter jammed solid, and corrosion to many other parts, but it has a case, and the lens was clean, and bright.


Voigtlander back open.

The Skopar name on the lens front has worn away, and the V logo on the front is faded somewhat.

All the leather had crumbled, and is now replace with fresh leatherette, after all the rust was removed. If it was leather it could be hot embossed with edging lines, but not really worthwhile on this example.

The leatherette needs the edges filled with black wax crayon, and a coat or two of boot black, and the knobs on the top wire brush cleaned and polished, one is chrome, one aluminium, and may be a replacement from the past.

The counter and reset lever all work fine.

The Pronto shutter was stripped and serviced, it works on all speeds and B, but delayed action is damaged beyond repair without parts. I will rig some Kodak 35mm cassettes to fit and give the camera a trial over the next few days.

Stephen.

[lloydy]

That's a great restoration of a very nice camera. It's wonderful to see enthusiasm at this level.
One of the things I use for polishing brightwork is a fiberglass pen for cleaning electrical contacts ( I use it for contacts as well ) but it does need to be used gently, I'm surprised just how abrasive they are. Being pen shaped they can get in tight corners, I use mine a lot, they are great for cleaning knurled knobs and stuff like that.

www.amazon.com/Hama-Contact-corrosion-terminal-fiberglass/dp/B00006IVJJ

I pay a lot less than this at a local electrical wholesalers.

[Stephen]

Research on the web shows that the Vito may actually be a 1947 production, as the filter mounts are blanked off, they were simply left to save using new parts.

The 1947 offering also had the Bessapan advert still moulded in the cast frame. I will check to see whether the Kodak cassette fits correctly.

On the fibre brushes, I use them a lot on model railway work, cleans brass a treat, but is far too vicious for the old type nickel chrome, it can wear through too easily. Very good on paint where it is to be retained and patched, there is an area on the bottom interior that needs painting black, I use car cellulose paint, or model enamel paint, Revell gloss is fine.

A very good gloss varnish is Rustin's pure brushing cellulose in the UK, and Testors gloss in the States and Canada. These cannot be brushed over enamel, although they can be sprayed with an airbrush.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

Test shot in the pouring rain with the Vito, with a clipped piece of 200ASA film, the formulae of the Skopar lens is a four element Tessar, max F3.5 on the Vito here.



Voigtlander Vito Skopar Standards lens 50mm F3.5, Raining hard....



Same view with Tessar F2.8 50mm lens.

The comparison photograph is made with another Tessar lens, to be fair, a Carl Zeiss Tessar F2.8 in a Werra 35mm compact camera, again clipped 35mmfilm, same strip, taken from one camera to the other, in the darkroom.

Pouring down with rain, the Vito image is definitely softer, and has lower contrast, but is sharp enough to use. The rain was heavier during the Vito shot, it had eased by the time the Tessar shot was done a few minutes later, so some of the lower contrast is the rain itself. I will try some colour negative film in it as well, at the weekend.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

Colour shot, Fuji film 100th at F11, on the Vito, the lens is now cleaned, seems to work a lot better, a little bit soft at the outer edges, but good overall performance for 1947.
Stephen.

[camerastoomany]

"good overall performance for 1947"

I will have you know, sir, that 1947 produced some damned fine performers and some of us are still performing. !!!!!!

[Stephen]

Oct 16, 2012 8:38:51 GMT -5 camerastoomany said:

"good overall performance for 1947"

I will have you know, sir, that 1947 produced some damned fine performers and some of us are still performing. !!!!!!

I trust not on camera!!

It must be a post war production from research, in the first year of the resumption using stored parts from pre-war, as it has the blanked mounts for the yellow filter. They made new parts from about 1947.

Stephen.

[melek]

Stephen, excellent writeup on a rather obscure camera. I sometimes wonder at the thinking of camera makers. By the late 1940s, the 35mm cartridge was well-established. And I guess I would also add that Kodak seemed to have a history of creating and then abandoning film formats: 616, 620, 127, 110, 126 Disc and possibly film itself (that remains to be seen).

[Stephen]

Oct 21, 2012 10:07:13 GMT -5 melek said:

Stephen, excellent writeup on a rather obscure camera. I sometimes wonder at the thinking of camera makers. By the late 1940s, the 35mm cartridge was well-established. And I guess I would also add that Kodak seemed to have a history of creating and then abandoning film formats: 616, 620, 127, 110, 126 Disc and possibly film itself (that remains to be seen).

The factors we forget today were the Patent issues, the Contax camera design was governed entirely by the patents of Leica, as was the Prominent camera from Voigtlander, and there were a raft of patents to roll film, formats, and cameras from Kodak, that were broken by Ansco in the 1920's, and Kodak then tried to more strongly protect 35mm film in cassettes, via the German courts in the 1930's.

Bessapan, Agfa Karat, and several other formats with 35mm film were the result, in the States Univex used a different cassette, all to save paying Kodak fees for the use of cassettes.

It is often commented upon that Ensign in the UK were silly to make the 127 roll film Multex, when they should have gone to 35mm, but that would have incurred patent fees.

Stephen.

[Peltigera]

I have just bought a Vito - slightly different to yours, Stephen. Mine does not have the Bessapan embossing inside, there is a large rivet (I think) by the film counter window, the eye-piece for the viewfinder is circular with a smaller window (judging entirely from the photographs, and the small lever just below the cable release socket is more stellate.

Camera

Canon EOS 650D

Focal Length

90mm

Aperture

f/2.8

Exposure

1/400s

ISO

6400

Camera

Canon EOS 650D

Focal Length

90mm

Aperture

f/2.8

Exposure

1/400s

ISO

6400

Camera

Canon EOS 650D

Focal Length

90mm

Aperture

f/2.8

Exposure

1/250s

ISO

6400

[Peltigera]

The lens serial number is 2700374 which Interweb resources tell me was made in 1945, so this must have been fairly soon after production resumed after the war (I assume production had ceased).

Standard film cassettes will fit on both sides of the camera and the camera came with a take-up spool which is almost identical to the inner spool of a normal cassette.

I shall be getting my test film (Agfa Vista plus print film) developed tomorrow and I shall upload some test pics.

[Stephen]

The Vito I have is post-war, as all the early post war ones were assembled from stored per-war parts. There is no lens number I can see to help dating. But dating can be done by the Bessapan moulded lettering, which survived until about 1947, when the changes were made to take sprocketed film.

The other indicator of date is the yellow filter mount, which on all made from about '46 to '49, had the holes filled with rivets on the left hand side of the lens, on the shutter rim. This was don from about '46 to '48, after that the shutter surround was changed with newly made parts.

I suspect if the date by lens number is right, then the newly made lens was put in an older shutter and it should have the blanked holes? or if there are no holes then the number indicates only the lens date, and the body is later 1940's production.
All Optical production was very patchy after the war, companies survived on machinery hidden away in the war, or stocks of pre-war parts.

Voigtlander got back into production quite quickly, they were in the US zone, and still had existing sales arrangements with US distrubutors to help with the re-start. Kodak sorted out Retina production within weeks, Leica got going straight away, and in the East Sector production came back after about a year, despite the loss of factories.

Zeiss was slow to recover, split in two, half to the Russians etc., and in some ways never recovered fully. The Occupying forces had more issues with Zeiss, due mainly to the pre-war German Governments direct involvement in forming the Zeiss optical conglomerate.

Stephen

[Peltigera]

The shutter bezel has three screws in it that surprised me as I have never seen a shutter bezel that was screwed in place before. Two of the screws are on the left (looking at the lens) and one on the right. I assume these are the filter mount rivets you mention. My camera is not adapted to take perforated film - it still has the sprocket-less feeler on the left of the film gate. Is the stellate lever by the left-hand door release button part of the filter arrangement? It serves no purpose on my camera that I can see.

I got my test film back from Happy Snaps this afternoon and the frames are slightly overlapping (about 1 to 2 mm) - all mechanical parts are freely moving so I suspect an internal adjustment is required (or the parts are worn enough to cause this. The camera has been 'well loved').

I have a question about 828 film. With 120 film in my Ikoflex, I need to wind the film until the number 1 appears in the red window - then the internal mechanism takes over advancing the film the right amount. On the Vito there is no red window, so with the pre-war Vito, how would the camera 'know' when the film had been wound on enough to reach the first frame? Or would the user just wind on the prescribed number of frames to get to the first frame of actual film?

[Peltigera]

Test photographs from my 'new' Vito: There is a definite black wedge along the top of each frame - not sure why. I am well pleased by the sharpness and colour rendition of the Skopar lens particularly the close-up of the cowslips. Not sure what improvements Voigtlander made when they recalculated the lens to produce the Color-Skopar.

[Peltigera]

Looking more closely, I think the black wedge might be the scanning as the over-lap on the sides is also wedge-shaped.