Zeiss Super Ikonta 531

Some shots from my pre-war 6x4.5 Super Ikonta with the Tessar lens. Not too bad for a $125 camera.

Gramma Mary gets to give a last bit of love at DIA before Hurricane Alyssa heads home. Plus a few shots of downtown Denver.

never sure why folks act surprised that a 90-year old lens does a good job. These are very nice, but typical of tessar performance, which is to say: excellent.

summicron1 said:

never sure why folks act surprised that a 90-year old lens does a good job. These are very nice, but typical of tessar performance, which is to say: excellent.

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+1
Pretty.much any anastigmat from the early 1890s on will deliver superb results when used properly. An eye opener is to use a Dagor or Protar on transparency material. Even a Rapid Rectilinear is very capable. Tessars came along in 1902 and have a well desrved reputation, as your pictures demonstrate.

Very nice. I have the same camera but I’ve never used colour film in it. I rarely shoot colour film in any camera. Not really sure why colour film even exists except some people seem to like it.

^ I guess you just need to live in a more colourful country Peter, from British Columbia .

summicron1 said:

never sure why folks act surprised that a 90-year old lens does a good job. These are very nice, but typical of tessar performance, which is to say: excellent.

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I'm not surprised about that, but immensely surprised that I found one that could do that for $125. Oh, and be in perfect mechanical and cosmetic condition. It only took 5 years.

Svenedin said:

Very nice. I have the same camera but I’ve never used colour film in it. I rarely shoot colour film in any camera. Not really sure why colour film even exists except some people seem to like it.

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I shoot color and B&W about 50-50 and wouldn't want to have to go buy a digital camera just to get color photos. Portra 400 in medium format just seems to hit a real sweet spot. Those 3 city shots are exactly how I remember the light and colors at that time of day.

Nice camera! I'm thinking about these Zeiss Ikontas my own self.
Much as I love B&W as THE reason I came back to film, I'm increasingly shooting Portra even to the extent that it's my standard for adjusting the magenta out of Fuji Velvia (I'm a hybrider who uses Capture One in post). Love letting Kodak do all the heavy lifting.

Skip, the Ikontas and Super Ikontas are really fun to use and do a great job. I had a 1948 521 6x6 with the Novar that I gave to my son-in-law after picking up the following model, the 523 from 1952. There was a surprising difference between the two. The 521 was indistinguishable from the pre-war Ikontas. It tended to vignette when any wider than f8. The 523 is much easier to use, mainly because it has depth-of-field marks on the lens to lessen the guesswork while setting the distance. With the newer Novar, the vignetting is gone and it adds a faster shutter with flash synch.

In the Super Ikontas, I've only ever used the 645 that I have. I really wanted a 6x9, but couldn't justify paying the high collector-driven price for what is, ultimately, just a toy. I was drooling over the used equipment at Englewood Camera one day and the owner said he had something in back that I would probably like. It was love at first sight, and after 5 years of searching, a real struggle to not offer him double what he asked for it. With the coupled range finder the guesswork is gone but because the f-stop and shutter speed numbers are printed so small, it is in some ways more difficult to use than the 523, especially in low light. It is smaller and lighter and easier to carry around.

My Super Ikonta III 531/16 (with Novar lens) does color too ... (Portra 400):

Stairway and shadow play by macfred64, on Flickr

Volkswagen Bug by macfred64, on Flickr

Sugar Mountain by macfred64, on Flickr

macfred64: Followed to your Flickr group and you have a B&W shot of a bridge from the same spot - one with a Rollei 3.5F, another with the Super Ikonta III, and a third with the Fuji GW690. Love your Flickr collection by the way - very nice work. Curious which of these cameras you still shoot, and how you compare or choose between them. Seems from the # of shots in each album, the Fuji comes in 1st, the Rollei 2nd and the Super Ikonta a distant 3rd. But that may not have anything to do with anything other than what you were shooting at any one time.

More generally as I look at these things from a price point, my Voigtlander Perkeo II is definitely at the bottom, then a Super Ikonta, next a Fuji GW690, then a Rollei 2.8 of some sort, then a Mamiya 6 (RF) and finally on up to a Makina Plaubel 67. Quite a range. And for now, I'm off with a system Rollei on one end (6008 that fairly is great when it works, and has some issues when it doesn't), and Voigtlander at the opposite end. Probably best to just work with what I have for a while.... if it will work, and give it some time. But it ain't a waste of effort to try to understand what works for some, what doesn't and why. Guess there are issues with each camera... as much as with each type of developer, developing tank, reel, etc. and some is just a matter of adapting.