Voigtländer Vito – Color Skopar 50mm f3.5 – 3DPrint adapted to M42 – Review

My very first camera was the Kodak Pocket Instamatic 400 with 110 film, I was 12 years old then, but even before that, I had already started learning photography. However, I can’t quite remember the exact cameras I used back then. The camera that I do remember and I loved the most, was an old Voigtlander Vito I from 1940. I believe it had belonged to my grandfather, and it was one of the cameras lying around at home that nobody was using. So, I claimed it for myself and started using it as my own camera. The Vito I was much more enjoyable than the Kodak because the latter was fully automatic, and the fun wore off quickly. The Vito had a foldable lens with a small bellows. It was fully manual, and as far as I can recall, focusing was done through a patch in the viewfinder linked to the lens, like a rangefinder. The camera didn’t have a light meter, and I didn’t have a separate meter either, so I relied on the exposure tables printed on the film boxes – the sunny 16 rule. I mainly took black and white photos on Ilford FP4 or HP5. Alongside using that camera, I learned to develop my own black and white film and print in the darkroom. Those were my first steps into the world of photography.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Voigtlander_Vito.jpg/1200px-Voigtlander_Vito.jpg?20121002080340

Packmatt, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Now, I’ve found the lens from that camera mounted on a 3D-printed M42 plastic mount, and again from Vintageglass – Bernd Sieger, Aachen, Germany, via eBay.

One small comment I have to make here, and that is that the lens is a Prontor-S, and the original Vito I had a Prontor II.
However, the differences in appearance are negligible, functions look exactly the same, the difference is mainly in shutter speed, which was 1/200 on the Prontor II instead of 1/300 on the Prontor S (Although it cocks, it doesn’t work anyway in this lens), either way it makes little difference for my purpose – the nostalgic feeling remains the same.

As I started using the lens again for the first time, memories flooded back. Adjusting focus, setting shutter speed and aperture, self timer, even cocking the shutter and release, all on a lens less than twenty millimeters long. It’s incredible that all of this was possible back then. But perhaps even more important, as I later noticed while reviewing the photo results on my computer, was the sharpness and quality of the images this small lens could produce.

On a micro 4/3 camera it is a difficult focal length (50mm = 100mm FOV equiv.35mm) and therefore I think less usable. For that reason I used it with the Pixco M42 – M4/3 Speed Booster. This gives you a 70mm FOV at 35mm, which is a bit more usable :

Above : camera Olympus E-PL1, Pixco M42-M4/3 – K&F Concept M42-M4/3

Photos were also taken on a Canon 5D Mark II, with a Pixco M42-EOS adapter :

Focusing on an E-PL1 was fairly easy with magnification activated, the lens itself runs very smoothly and finding the right focus point was no problem. The aperture was less easy, it is a slider on top of the lens, but the adapter and the connection for the flash are both a bit in the way.

Furthermore, nothing of the lens is used, the timer (which works!) and the shutter (which goes off!) are of no importance because the leaf shutter itself has been removed – Although, this small detail also adds to the authenticity and nostalgic feeling of the original camera, it clicks and buzzes just like my old Vito 🙂

Exposure is completely controlled in your camera. The E-PL1, due to its boxy appearance, is a very suitable camera for this lens, and adds to its vintage look !

I can highly recommend the Voigtländer Color Skopar 50mm f3.5 on M42 if you have a soft spot for this special form of photography. The lens is small, even on an adapter, and is very easy to use. A top lens for vintage photography!

Visit my gallery for photo samples : https://marcroovers.wordpress.com/?p=6263

Vintageglass – Bernd Sieger, Aachen, Germany :

https://www.etsy.com/shop/vintageglas and on eBay : search for vintageglas and use a lens brand like Meyer Optik, this should give what you are searching for, or try : https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/vintageglas and https://www.ebay.de/usr/vintageglas

La Gallerie

The photo gallery of Open Source Photography, Olympus micro 4/3 system, Vintage Lens Photograpy, Film Simulation, PictureFX, HDR – Photographer : Marc R.