January is a pretty rainy month in the Pacific Northwest, so I have not had many chances to bring the Voigtlander rangefinder from the early 2000’s outside to shoot. Currently I have only shot two rolls of film, one a roll of expired Fuji color film which is currently out for development, and the other a roll of trusty Ilford HP5+ which I developed myself with DF96 monobath. The latter was shot using the Voigtlander Color Skopar 35mm f2.5. The version I have is an older Leica screw mount lens, easily used with the M-mount Bessa by means of a simple adapter.
I had shot part of the roll at ISO 800, so I decided to push these shots though it really wasn’t necessary. Fortunately, the 1/2000 maximum shutter speed on the Bessa T means I can use fairly fast film in lots of conditions without worry, especially when stopping down.
The 35mm Color Skopar lens worked admirably, being a tiny but very well-made lens. Since I purchased an older one, it has slight haze when I shine a strong light through it. I will have to shoot a good bit more to see whether it affects images – given the cloudy conditions present here lately, I am not going to run into flare or other situations where the small amount of haze could become an issue.
So far, I find the Bessa T to be pleasantly different to shoot with. Since one must focus first through the rangefinder window and then move up to the accessory viewfinder for taking shots, it may seem slow, but in practice that often isn’t the case with rangefinder cameras. Lenses made for Leica mounts have good distance scales, and short focus throws. Combined with the focus peg or lever on the 35mm Color Skopar, this means focusing by “feel” becomes easier with use. I often found myself using my previous rangefinder, the fixed-lens Ricoh 500G, by setting the approximate distance on the distance scale instead of aligning the rangefinder patch, especially in quick situations like street photography, or landscapes where the aperture is stopped down and infinity focus is called for.
The Bessa T actually makes this kind of focusing easier, as there is not rangefinder patch in the middle of my view through the viewfinder. Because rangefinder cameras don’t show you what the camera actually sees, the rangefinder patch can be distracting if it doesn’t quite line up, prompting the user to fiddle with focus when there may not be time. Particularly with wider lenses and stopped down aperture, the photograph could actually be in perfectly good focus even while the rangefinder’s superimposed image tells me it isn’t! While the Bessa T doesn’t allow the middle ground, it does offer a good experience with either slow and careful focusing (helpful is the magnified rangefinder window) or fast and on-the-fly changing the distance scale.
The Sprocket Docket 