I inherited my grandfather’s Voigtlander Bessa 66 from my parents around 2010, along with a collection of 35mm equipment that had belonged to my dad and me. My grandfather had stopped using the camera before I was born, so I’d never seen the Voigtlander before. I was quite taken with it. I loved its compact size and its clever folding bellows mechanism. But using it turned out to be more challenging! I shot a few rolls of T-MAX and nearly everything ended up way overexposed. So I set the camera aside.
Fast forward 10 years and I decided my official Pandemic Hobby would be photography. As that hobby grew I started to explore the older cameras that I’d been using for decoration. I was especially interested in using the Voigtlander for a backwoods canoeing trip, figuring that the no-battery, entirely manual camera would be better suited to a rough, wet adventure.
Some quick testing told me that the Voigtlander’s shutter speeds were way off, so I sent it off for repair. The shutter then broke again, leaving me with a max speed of 1/50th. So, off for another repair! The cycle of life for vintage cameras.
With the shutter working correctly I loaded up a roll of Lomography’s Berlin 400. I wanted to amplify the grain a bit, so I decided to push it one stop to 800 ISO.
Now, that may have been a mistake. This combination of fast film and slow-ish shutter limited my ability to do outdoor photos on anything but a cloudy day. The Voigtlander claims to have a max shutter speed of 1/500. But the shutter control on my camera jams up if I try to go past 1/250
Do not try to go beyond 1/250!
Since I’d already repaired the shutter twice I didn’t want to try and force the issue. Using a yellow filter helped, since it cut about one stop of light, but in future I probably won’t load anything faster than 400 in this camera.
The yellow filter helped a lot with this photo, as did taking it early in the day.
The Voigtlander Bessa 66s are scale finder cameras. Before taking a photo you estimate the distance to your subject and then turn the lens to the same distance. You can take a zone focus approach as well. The lens comes with two zone indicators and a handy depth-of-field tool that you can use to figure out the right focus for your shot. Sometimes you don’t get the focus quite right!
Scale focus is difficult when shooting in low-light situations and you have limited depth-of-field
Once the roll was complete I developed it myself in Ilford Ifosol3. Lomo recommends 8:45, but I increased that to 13:00 because of the push. I scanned the negatives using my cobbled-together home scanning setup: a Lomography Digitaliza, Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III and a vintage Super Macro-Takumar 50mm F4 lens. I edited with Affinity Photo.
As I’ve re-engaged with photography I’ve come to enjoy the patient and slow side of the hobby, which is definitely part of shooting with the Bessa 66. It’s not a camera for quick shots; it’s a camera that requires some forethought and deliberation. But it’s also small and light enough that I can bring it anywhere, ready to capture the moment… assuming that I don’t need to capture the moment quickly.
I have more photos on Flickr, or you can follow me on Mastadon at @[email protected]
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