I was given this Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa by a work colleague of my wife. It had been her father’s camera, and she came across it when he passed away.
The shutter was stuck, the meter did not work, but otherwise it was in excellent cosmetic condition. Our local vintage camera repair man charged £20 to sort it out. I hadn’t expected that the meter would ever function again, but it does now. Well done Alan!
The camera is quite small, not as wide as a Pentax MX for example, but is very substantially constructed. The leaf shutter is incredibly quiet; it would be great for candid photography if I was into that sort of thing. For general use, my preference would be for a shorter focal length lens than the 50mm f2 Ultron fitted.
Uniquely, in my experience, the movement of the film forward drives the shutter cocking mechanism. If there is no film in the camera you can’t cock the shutter, except by winding the toothed wheel that you see in the rear view. To open the camera there is a flap in the base plate that hinges down releasing the cassette and the door of the camera.
It is a 35mm rangefinder camera, and the rangefinder appears to works well enough, but in difficult lighting situations I found it hard to make out the split image, while it is almost impossible to use it with the camera held in the vertical mode. The meter reading is reflected into the viewfinder, you have to match two pointers, one with a circular cut out. Shutter speed and aperture are linked to maintain a constant exposure value. This is very convenient to use, but I have found that the ISO setting can move if you are not careful, despite there being a locking catch.
I have only exposed one film, an HP5, so it is perhaps too early to assess the performance. The gaps between the frames are smaller than I am used to, but there is no overlap. My first impression is that the lens is OK rather than spectacular, but it’s early days.
Here's a couple of sample shots: -
Testing the rangefinder
Grandson
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