Voigtlander Vito III

[BobDavid]

The shutter works well.

[Rob C]

The shutter works well.

The Vito B was even more pretty! I had one that my then girlfriend helped me to buy. As I remarked before, that wasn't the main reason we married for life, though.

Having said which, meeting me so young and knowing what I wanterd to do with my life meant that my eventual career came as no shock or surprise; in fact, she helped me achieve it in every way she possibly could. God bless her.

One good thing about the Vito B: there was no need to use it upside down.

;-)

Rob

[BobDavid]

The Vito B was even more pretty! I had one that my then girlfriend helped me to buy. As I remarked before, that wasn't the main reason we married for life, though.

Having said which, meeting me so young and knowing what I wanterd to do with my life meant that my eventual career came as no shock or surprise; in fact, she helped me achieve it in every way she possibly could. God bless her.

One good thing about the Vito B: there was no need to use it upside down.

;-)

Rob

Ah, that's a sweet story. ... The reason I displayed it upside down is I like the way it appears to have a canopy.

[Rob C]

Canopy: yes, Saul Leiter was more than a little enamoured of them too!

Does his style of street genre appeal to you as well? I love it - it has probably been one of the very few things I really admit to having found influence me greatly. I admire many other photographers, but haven't consciously tried to think like them, mainly because it will never work out! Sadly, it's the same if I try to enter Leiter mode: all I get is me.

Rob

[farbschlurf]

I got a Vito B. Was the camera of my father. I use it from time to time.

(Just a quick and dirty picture.)

[Rob C]

Ah, but mine was f2.8/50mm Color Skopar! I bought a little rangefinder (Voigtländer, of course) for it and felt myself the bee's knees.

;-)

Rob

[farbschlurf]

I guess my father couldn't afford the faster lens. He always talked about that he spent his very first few salaries as a apprentice for the camera ... must have been about '52-'54 or so. Long before I was born ... can't ask him nevermore, I'm afraid ... I keep the camera in his honor.

[BobDavid]

Okay, here it is rightside up, albeit highlights blown out.

[Rob C]

I guess my father couldn't afford the faster lens. He always talked about that he spent his very first few salaries as a apprentice for the camera ... must have been about '52-'54 or so. Long before I was born ... can't ask him nevermore, I'm afraid ... I keep the camera in his honor.

Actually, I don't think the f3.5 lens was advertised very much in Britain - I don't remember hearing about it. However, this was all in the second half of the 50s; I think the camera cost £ 25, which was perhaps about the "average" weekly wage of the time. My wage as a first-year mechanical engineering apprentice was about £ 2-10-0 a week, and I think both parties got a bad deal from that, employer and myself. Only four years later, when I managed to negotiate a transfer to the photographic department did either side become mutually attuned and of equal benefit one to the other! At least it kept me out of the army for four years, by the end of which the whole sorry enterprise was abandoned by the government. What a massive waste of public money, distressed young lives, and all for nothing but a demented desire to appear a fighting nation at a time said nation was pretty much bankrupt. Nothing seems to have changed that much... and it will be getting worse when Mad Boris and the Crazies have their final way with us. You couldn't make it up. Deathwish: misery by unilateral isolation and belief in fairies bearing gifts and forgiveness for desertions and expoitations past.

[Rob C]

Okay, here it is rightside up, albeit highlights blown out.

You may have been right first time... canopies grow on one.

Rob

[32BT]

Now that you mention it, yes, works as an automatic lenshood and the lens is probably easier to operate from below, which brings up the question: how did one operate the lens on one of these?

[Telecaster]

The focus knob on the top deck was a Voigtländer thing, I think.

The more pics I see of the Vito III the more convinced I am that it was the Voigt my dad spoke of owning for a short time in the '50s.

-Dave-