Old Voigtländer cameras - how to shoot with them?

greeneyedspirit

A pair of old ladies have found their way into my hands -
Two Voigtländer folding cameras that have been sitting in various basements for the last 30 years, and probably haven't been used for a long time before they ended up in said basements. These used to be my grandfather's cameras (most likely bought before WW II), and my dad handed them over to me because I'm the only one in the family with an interest in photography.

One of the cameras looks like it's a Voigtländer Bergheil, it comes with a stack of glass plate holders, a film back, although I've no idea what type of film this might be. 120 mm, perhaps? The one that was in the back is ruined now, anyway, after goodness knows how many years in there, and of course me poking around in it! There's also a little cable-release.


the film back:


The other one is a 'pocket camera', smaller than the Bergheil, and that one only takes film, the same type as the big sister.


Along with those two beauties, there are Zeiss colour filters (red, blue, green, yellow, orange) in mint condition, and four never-opened boxes of glass plates (two of them have a hand-written date on them - summer '44!). The glass plates are positive plates.


Now... I'm totally smitten with these - and the best part is, they appear to be functional, the shutter on both is working fine.
I would absolutely LOVE to bring them back to life, and use them.

Anyone here shooting on glass plates? I don't even know if you could get these developed anywhere, or would I have to do that myself? Might be a fun thing to learn, too... I would assume that's the same process as with film? Not that I know how to do that, but I'm definitely willing to learn

To be honest, I don't really know where or how to start with this...
But I would love to give it a try, shoot some film and maybe even the glass plates, and try and develop it myself. I know there's a good few threads on how to do that in this forum, so I shall search and read. (If the film is indeed 120, though, I can still get that developed in places, right? Perhaps even here in Galway?

So, any advice on how to handle cameras like these is greatly appreciated.
Further shots are in the Pix.ie album: http://pix.ie/greeneyedspirit/album/403473

magicbastarder

doesn't look as if they take 120 - probably just glass plates. without searching further, you'd probably have to find glass and cut it and coat it, which would earn you such kudos among the film fanatics here you'd probably be given you your own forum.

you can see in the photos for the baby bergheil below that it takes a common size for 120 (6x4.5cm), but it looks like glass plates or sheet film beside it.

http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bergheil

greeneyedspirit

magicbastarder wrote: »

doesn't look as if they take 120 - probably just glass plates.

but... the big camera does come with a film back, and the little one only takes film...
Here's the film back, opened, with some sort of film in it - the back is a Rollex-Patent.


If I can't get these working, fair enough, they still look lovely :P - but if I CAN get film for them, why not use them, or try, at least?

DaireQuinlan

sweet :-)

Does the larger of the two actually have movements on the front standard ? IE shift/rise or tilt/swing ? Looks like it comes with a ground glass back for focusing and a bunch of plate backs. Just from looking briefly at camerapedia it appears to be 6.5cm x 9cm plates. You can trawl through EBay for plates, look for kodak or ilford plates, bit hit and miss though because they're mostly quite old. Dev wise I'd say you'd have to do it yourself. When I was thinking of doing it a while back, I was going to tray develop them in darkness, but if the push came to a shove I could probably have jammed them into one of my development tanks and done them that way depending on the size. Experimentation would also be needed as to best chems etc etc.

The roll back could be any one of a couple of different roll formats. Luckily you actually have a roll so it should be easy enough to tell. I'd hold out on unravelling it though, there might be some pictures on it, although it -does- look as though it's loaded in the loading spool and not the takeup spool. What's the text on the backing paper you can see ? Any identifying information on the back itself ? IE does it say 'Use 120 film' anywhere ? I ask because I have an old 6x9 folder that conveniently says just that on that back, makes it easy to tell :-)

Should be places in galway that develop 120 all right, though not familiar with the place, I'm sure there are people here who are.

magicbastarder

what's the width of the roll?

greeneyedspirit

magicbastarder wrote: »

what's the width of the roll?

I'd have to measure that, I'll do that tonight (a very rough guesstimate would be approx 5 cm, but I could be totally off with that)

DaireQuinlan

Actually, looking at it there it looks like someone got half way through the roll and then didn't finish it. Is there film wound onto the takeup spool ?

greeneyedspirit

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

sweet :-)

Does the larger of the two actually have movements on the front standard ? IE shift/rise or tilt/swing ? Looks like it comes with a ground glass back for focusing and a bunch of plate backs. Just from looking briefly at camerapedia it appears to be 6.5cm x 9cm plates. You can trawl through EBay for plates, look for kodak or ilford plates, bit hit and miss though because they're mostly quite old. Dev wise I'd say you'd have to do it yourself. When I was thinking of doing it a while back, I was going to tray develop them in darkness, but if the push came to a shove I could probably have jammed them into one of my development tanks and done them that way depending on the size. Experimentation would also be needed as to best chems etc etc.

The roll back could be any one of a couple of different roll formats. Luckily you actually have a roll so it should be easy enough to tell. I'd hold out on unravelling it though, there might be some pictures on it, although it -does- look as though it's loaded in the loading spool and not the takeup spool. What's the text on the backing paper you can see ? Any identifying information on the back itself ? IE does it say 'Use 120 film' anywhere ? I ask because I have an old 6x9 folder that conveniently says just that on that back, makes it easy to tell :-)

Should be places in galway that develop 120 all right, though not familiar with the place, I'm sure there are people here who are.

Thanks Daire - sweet indeed!
The big one has a little screw-thing towards the top of the lens, with which you can move the bellows + lens up and down. Don't know about sideways, though, haven't found anything/looked for that yet.
It also did come with a glass back for focussing, but I haven't managed to get it open yet
The glass plates are indeed 6.5 x 9 cm.

As for the film roll, the text on it that I can see says 555 (the middle 5 is rotated by 90 degrees)... and I can just make out the tail end of 444, written in the same way. Might be the number of the picture? I don't know. I'll have a closer look at the back, though, to see if there's anything else written on it.

greeneyedspirit

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Actually, looking at it there it looks like someone got half way through the roll and then didn't finish it. Is there film wound onto the takeup spool ?

Yeah, the film is on both rolls, looks like it was a work in progress

greeneyedspirit

Okay, so the width of the film roll is 6 cm.
No writing on the film or the back to indicate it is 120 film, but it looks like it is? You can do 8 (6x9) exposures, 12 (6x6) exposures or 16 (4.5x6) exposures with this film, depending on the camera.

DaireQuinlan

Could be 120 or 620, only difference is in the spool size. Probably 120 though, outside of Kodak cameras there weren't as many cameras that used 620 over 120. Get an empty 120 spool from somewhere and compare. If it fits in the loading and takeup slots without too much difficulty and rotates freely then you're good to go.