Voigtländer Bessa II

[dslater]

I recently got a Voigtländer Bessa II with a Color-Skopar lens on it. What wonderful camera!!. I took it to a parade out the other day with some Fuji NPC 160 film and my son to try it out. Shot the whole roll - most of the shots of the parade were at around f/11 and are very sharp with great color. However, there is a portrait I took of my son with the lens nearly wide open - probably f/4 or maybe f/5.6 - The out of focus background has wonderfully creamy bokeh and my son pops right out very sharply - I'm looking at a 5x7 print I made right now and this lens/format combination definitely gives my Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-D lens a run for its money.
I also have a Bessa 1 with a Skopar lens on it, However, I rarely used it due to the need for scale focusing - the range-finder on the Bessa II makes all the difference.
Just curious, how much better is the Color-Heliar lens than the Color-Skopar - Color-Heliar equipped Bessa's seem to command quite a premium over Color-Skopar ones - is this due to a big difference in quality, or is more due to rarity and collectors driving up the price of Color-Heliar Bessas?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I had one with a Color-Heliar. The Heliar should give you sharper corners, and more of what used to be called the "plastic" effect of nice separation between the in-focus and out-of-focus parts of the image. Here's a sample--

The camera didn't work for me ergonomically, at least not for horizontals, so I sold it eventually, but if you like it, then the Heliar version is nice.

Here's another one--

 

[dslater]

Hi David,
Those are very nice images. The first one looks very much like the picture of my son - although I think you may have stopped down a little more - your background isn't as our of focus as mine. Of course it's pretty hard to compare a 96 DPI screen image to a print in hand.
I agree, the ergonomics take a little getting used to - it's basically a left handed camera, but I haven't found it too difficult to get used to - biggest thing it to remember focus with your left hand so you don't accidentally advance the film.
I also read that some people have problems with film flatness - I haven't noticed an problems there - I wonder if the Bessa II is better in this respect than the Bessa I was. One thing I do to try and help this is to advance the film just before I shoot in hopes there will be a little extra tension on the film.

Dan

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Thanks, I think that first one was at f:8 or so.

I think all these folding cameras aren't as good from the flatness perspective when compared with a sturdy modern rollfilm back, but a Linhof 6x9 Super-Rollex back weighs about as much as the whole Bessa II.

I found it hard to hold the camera steady in the horizontal position, but I was fine with it in the vertical position or on a tripod.

 

[dslater]

I think all these folding cameras aren't as good from the flatness perspective when compared with a sturdy modern rollfilm back, but a Linhof 6x9 Super-Rollex back weighs about as much as the whole Bessa II.

Yes - and the back mounted on a view camera doesn't fit in you pocket very well either .

Dan

 

[dslater]

I found it hard to hold the camera steady in the horizontal position, but I was fine with it in the vertical position or on a tripod.

I hadn't noticed that, but it was a bright sunny day and I think my shutter speed was around 200. My intention is to use this camera with fast film ISO 400 or above.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

It may have just been me. I broke my left wrist once, so there's a little weakness on that side, and maybe that's caused some sort of problem, but I tried holding the camera in various ways, and it was tricky for whatever reason to get my horizontals as sharp as the verticals. I usually shot Tri-X at 640 in Acufine so I could get as fast a shutter speed as possible. It was a subtle problem, but I definitely noticed it.