Camera Talk

Question... I also got my Vito II fixed
however the scale of distances is hard to read.
Any idea how to make the white whiter?
VitoII

I have a Vito 1 and the distances are marked in black, which is easy to read. If you trust your fingers, you could fill the numbers with black using a laundry marker or a fine brush and modelling enamel. Fill the engraving and then wipe away the surface excess with a cotton wool bud.

Thanks Graham,
IN this one the scale is white, in a black plastic ring. The numbers are tiny (about 2mm), I cleaned the ring with a moist q-tip to see if it was grime as I don;t think I can get them painted.

I'll have to disassemble the lens, let me see about that
-- yeah I did take the ring out, and since I got there, I took the lens apart cleaned and re-greased the assembly
I remembered I had a safety-yellow wax pen and that filled the voids nicely and seems easier to read ....

GrahamS wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:48 am

I have a Vito 1 and the distances are marked in black, which is easy to read. If you trust your fingers, you could fill the numbers with black using a laundry marker or a fine brush and modelling enamel. Fill the engraving and then wipe away the surface excess with a cotton wool bud.

Voigtlander Vito II Post-CLA

Well done! Mine is the Skopar f3.5, 5cm in the Prontor II shutter. The ring is silver.

I think the Vito II is the postwar version of the I, where they renamed the lens to Color-Skopar and did a few small things in the camera.

This one is a nifty camera, and it came with filters (yellow and orange), proxi filters, hood, kontur finder, etc.
I'll test it this weekend at the antiques festival

Vito II Test
Vito II Test

GrahamS wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:42 pm

Well done! Mine is the Skopar f3.5, 5cm in the Prontor II shutter. The ring is silver.

Well done, good that you figured out that O-ring trick.

Voigtlanders are so smoooth! And they usually carry good lenses.

Julio,
my dad was a Zeiss person (Pentax after 1972) but one of my uncles used to carry a Voigtlander Vito and I always remembered how cool that logo was, especially the stylized V.
These old Voigtlanders are great, lots of attention to detail in things like the stitching of the leather, the location of controls, etc.
What has blown my mind is the number of blades in those tiny diaphragms, both the Vito and the Vitessa have 10+blades, making the iris almost perfectly circular. That is on par to the Zeiss of the time.

Julio1fer wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:55 pm

Well done, good that you figured out that O-ring trick.

Voigtlanders are so smoooth! And they usually carry good lenses.

I have two Vito II. Should exercise one of them! Inspired by this thread.

Oh well, honey, it followed me home....

While walking around with the Vito, a guy in the antiques festival in Braselton GA told me he had an AGFA camera... it turned out to be a Super-Solinette
It had the focus frozen (Agfa grease) but seemed in OK shape and after a little haggling because the shutter had been cocked for God knows how long I got it for $20
Super Solinette...Honey, I swear it followed me home!!!!
Focus is stiff but not frozen, and the glass is clean
** I cleaned the focus helicoid with electrical contact cleaner on a (dozen) Q-tip and is a lot smoother - smeared high vacuum grease and now is fine
Shutter is a Synchro-Compur so it should be OK - Shutter speeds are OK, 1s is more like 1.5 but 1/25 onwards are OK
** Gave it a good clean and speeds are good and snappy
Bellow has only 1 leak a few ton of pinholes and a good tear.
** Tear on one of the seams how to fix???
- RF is not working, there seems to be a catch to move the RF mirror when the lens-assembly moves that is not clicking
** actually it works fine in the short distances but is not returning to infinity; so a spring must be lose but I'm scared to open the top

All in all not a bad $20

Good catch!