Voigtländer Brilliant

 We took our dog, Roxie, for an outing on the West Mesa to the east of the volcanoes.  She would have preferred to splash in the river, but it is waterless this summer.

 The area has a large network of horse trails with many types of jumps.  It would be fun to see the place in use, but we have never seen anyone on horseback there in the years we have been visiting the place.

 

I was able to finish off the roll of Kentmere 100 in the Voigtlander Brilliant the next day when we visited the Art Museum.

 

The very bright viewing screen of the little pseudo-tlr makes the camera a real pleasure to use, and I'm always impressed with the images delivered by the uncoated Voigtar f/7.7 lens.

Friday Morning

 Ate breakfast.  Walked the dog.  Margaret went off to have breakfast with a friend.  Nothing left to do but to head for Old Town with a roll of Fomapan 100 in my Voigtländer Brilliant.

I asked if I might take a picture of this fine looking Scottish Deerhound.  The owner agreed, but insisted the picture be made in the shade as she said he would  not stand still on the sun drenched sidewalk.  I would have preferred to picture him in motion as his gait was incredibly buoyant; it seemed he might suddenly float off the pavement.

Brilliant

 I ran another roll of Fomapan 100 through the little Voigtländer Brilliant.  I just about have the light leaks eliminated.  Electrician's tape does the job, but a better solution would be to replace the light seals on the back which look pretty petrified.  

Back to the Brilliant

I took a nice morning walk through my neighborhood down to Tiguex Park, something I haven't done in some time. The camera was one of my favorites, the little Voigtländer Brilliant.  In describing the use and qualities of the finder the manual says:

"If you now look down vertically at this lens from a distance of about 10", you will see the finder picture (fig.3) the limits of which coincide exatly with those of the picture thrown on the film.  It is the right way up, is very brilliant and measures 1-9/16" square, i.e. two thirds the size of the picture."

The manual then goes on to describe a method for estimating focal distance using the image of a standing man in relation to pointers in the finder.  The man imaged in the finder is stated to be 5' feet 5", an interesting specification related to the average height of European and American males in 1932. 

There were no 5'5" men in the pictures I shot on the street and in the park, but I am pretty good at estimating distances and since it was a sunny day permitting the use of the f22 aperture setting, the resulting depth of field provided a good cushion for distance guesses.

I shot Fomapan 100 and developed it in the last of my bottle of Ilford DD-X.  I thought the tones and grain of the resulting images were pretty good.  I'm going to shoot another roll of Fomapan 100 in the camera and I'm thinking I'll try it in Rodinal next, which has given me good results in the past.

I remembered that a previous use of the Brilliant showed a light leak on one side of the images.  I put some black electrician's tape over what I thought was the right place on the back, but still had a bit of a leak this time.  So I'll be more generous with tape on the next use.  I have also added a bootlace neck strap as a aid to holding the camera steady at the 1/50 available on the shutter.  

The 7.7/75mm lens on the Brilliant is uncoated, but well corrected and capable of yielding good sharpness if one is careful to brace the camera solidly.

I have a couple fancy twin-lens cameras with a wide range of apertures and speeds as well as focusing through coupled taking and viewing lenses, but for me that brilliant view provided by the modest little Voigtländer along with its light weight and diminutive size make it a contender.

Balloon Fiesta 2019

The first day of this year's Ballon Fiesta got fogged in, but both weekend days saw impressive mass ascensions.  When the balloons are back on the ground everyone heads into Old Town for the rest of the day.  I walked around the Plaza Vieja with my Voigtlander Brilliant.

Most of my shots had bad light leaks.  When I looked closely at the camera later I could see that there is a dent at the edge of the back that is letting in the light.  I think I covered that the last time I shot the camera with some black tape, but it has been over a year since I last used the camera, and I forgot about the leak.  I'll try to do another roll soon with the leak stopped up.  I really like the little Brilliant as its images are always surprisingly sharp and the brilliant finder makes shooting the camera a real treat.

Fomapan 100

I was reminded by a posting at Filmwasters how much I like my little Voigtlander Brilliant, so I took it along on a walk through the neighborhood loaded with some Fomapan 100.  The writer at Filmwasters categorized his Brilliant as a box camera as his model has a fixed-focus f-11 lens.  Mine doesn't fit in the box category as it is equipped with a focusing 3-element anastigmat Voitar lens.  Otherwise, the cameras appear identical with metal body construction and the superlative viewfinder.  Voigtlander was the pioneer among camera makers in first marketing a 6x6 camera with the brilliant finder in 1932.  Other major camera producers like Kodak and Ansco only got around to offering brilliant finders after WWII.

I processed the 120 Fomapan in Rodinal 1:50 and like the results better than what I have gotten so far from the two rolls of Fomapan 200 that I've shot so far.  However, the grain and tonality were not up to the quality I used to get from Acros in Rodinal.  I may try the film again with stand development in HC-100 or Rodinal to see if that gets me closer to what I am looking for.

Engine 4

The crew of Engine 4 often stops for coffee at La Cocina Azul a couple blocks from my place.  When I saw them there this morning, I grabbed some shots of the truck with my Voigtländer Brilliant.

The Voigtar 7.7 lens is a three-element Anastigmat design. It is a little lacking in contrast, but yields excellent sharpness across the frame if you can hold it steady at the shutter's maximum speed of 1/50.

Concours du Soleil

Brilliant Dance

Margaret called me from Old Town Albuquerque where she had ridden her bike to mail some letters from the post office there.  I could hardly hear her over the sound of the drums and the chanting, but it was clear that she thought I ought to get myself over there.

On something of a whim, I dropped a roll of 35mm Kodak Gold 100 into my Voigtländer Brilliant.  I taped up the yellow window on the camera's bottom to keep the light from the unprotected 35mm film.  One-and-one-half rotations of the film advance knob seemed about right to keep the frames separated properly.

Getting a moving target properly centered in the viewfinder which is left-right reversed was a little challenging.  Still, I thought the little camera performed brilliantly again.

Shooting the Voigtländer Brilliant

Even after switching to TMAX 400 my negatives are still a bit thin.  I'm going to try changing the dilution of my TMAX developer to 1:4 in place of 1:7.

I still have some small light leaks which are likely reducing contrast a bit as well as can be seen in the above full-frame scan.