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If you like this blog and if it was useful to you, I would like a small retribution in form of a charity donation for one of these animal shelters. They're awesome people and really need help. Thank you !

Lakeroad Ferret Farm Shelter
West Michigan Ferret Connection
Ferret Dreams Rescue and Adoption

Friday, October 7, 2016

Barebones EXA 1C

Do you think the Zenit as probably the most primitive and barebones SLR ? Think twice!

The EXA series is THE definition of a barebones SLR !

Exa 1C and accessory pentaprism

Exa 1C top view

This is the quintessence in terms of limited resources. In all aspects.

The EXA 1C is the last of the EXAs a very long-lived family of cameras created originally by Ihagee (Dresden, ex-DDR) to be a very simple version of the damn complicated Exaktas.

The original EXAs were made of solid metal and with the old Exakta lens mount. But let's talk about the one I'm showing here, the last of the EXAs.

It's not made by Ihagee, but by Certo and not metal made but plastic. And this last version uses the M42 screw mount for lenses. In all other aspects it's identical to the older models.

The first thing you may note is the waist level viewfinder. It's like an old school TLR. Inverted image and a dark focusing screen with no focusing aid like a split image or microprism. It's just plain and that's it.

The good thing is that you can also use a pentaprism. Not great, but it's an option to the waist level finder.

Continuing with the limitations, there are just 5 shutter speeds B, 30, 60, 125 and a weird 175 ! Who needs more? =)

The shutter release button is in a very awkward position on the left side of the camera front. Maybe good for left-handed people.

One of the most curious aspects of this camera is the fact the mirror has no instant return and the shutter has NO curtain. The mirror box itself acts as the shutter. It's clever but limits the maximum speed.

And of course, it has no light meter!


Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Voigtlander Vito CL

The Voigtlander Vito series cameras are simple ones, very cheap and easy to find on sale, but they are fun to use and capable of good images.

Voigtlander Vito CL

The Vito hearth is the coated 50mm F2.8 Lanthar lens, a triplet made with lanthanum glass that takes 32mm snap-in filters. It's an honest lens, with decent performance if stopped down from f8 to f11 but quite soft at wider apertures. This weakness can be used to obtain quite nice effects, for example, softness in portraits. The camera above has a five-blade iris. The blade number can vary depending on the camera, shutter and lens model.

Some 35mm Voigtlanders can be found with other lenses, like the much better Skopar, a four-element Tessar like lens.

Do yourself a favor and get a 32mm snap-in lens hood, conical style because the front lens rotates.

The shutter is a Gauthier Prontor 500 LK shutter, with speeds from 1/15s to 1/500s plus B. It has no slow speeds. This shutter is an intermediate cost one, but it's very reliable.

The Albada type viewfinder is BIG and very clear. There's no rangefinder in this model, but the CLR has (R is for rangefinder and L for light meter).

It has a coupled selenium light meter visible on the viewfinder and also on the camera's top. All you need is to "guesstimate" and set the distance using a very nice focus and depth of field scale and adjust the exposure using the built-in light meter by matching the meter needle with a circle, by adjusting the aperture and speed.

There's also an ASA/DIN setting ring for proper film usage.

The camera feels very solid in hands.

Key features:


  • Single coated 50mm F2.8 Lanthar triplet
  • All mechanical shutter speeds (1/15 to 1/500s)
  • Built-in coupled selenium light meter, visible from the top plate or the viewfinder
  • BIG, LARGE and crisp viewfinder
  • Takes 32mm snap-in filters
  • Manual focus, by scale.

Some people say that Voigtlanders are lower quality than Kodak Retinas, but the fact is I rarely get a non-working Voigtlander in hands and probably 9 in 10 Retinas needs some repair.

Also, the quality depends on the lens. Voigtländers lenses can come in many flavors: Vaskar, Skopar, Lanthar and the absolutely superb APO-Lanthar, not available on Vito and Vitorets.