If you wanted to have even the foggiest idea of what the lens was pointed at you needed to bring your own shoe-mount finder. Despite the minimalist design, the Bessa L proved popular and paved the way for progressively more complex Bessa models. The Bessa L lacked any type of viewfinder or rangefinder optics, and was little more than a light-tight box with a shutter, though curiously it did offer TTL metering. When Cosina relaunched the Voigtländer name in the 1990s, it was with some of the simplest cameras of the decade. As the M5 showed us, all deviations from the norm shall be punished, right? That aside, the Bessa is a reasonably modern camera, and a refreshing departure from Leica’s iconoclastic adherence to tradition. Threads, simple though they may be, are less idiot-proof than a good bayonet mount. Like the owners of countless Russian rangefinders, the Bessa user needs to take care to avoid cross-threading when mounting a lens. As of press time, I have two Mamiya Universals, two Canonets, a Canon P, a Bolsey, and now this Voigtländer Bessa R.Īfter Leica launched the M-Mount in 1954, the older thread mount became mostly the purview of a handful of Canon rangefinders and some other, shall we say, proletarian cameras. I seem to own a lot of rangefinders for someone who told James “I’m not a rangefinder guy,” when I signed on with Casual Photophile. But this most-charming of all Canons only served as a backup for my newest acquisition yet another rangefinder. While a Canon did make its way into my carry-on, it was the smallest my Canonet. My wife and I were traveling earlier this month, and I didn’t want to lug my usual cameras (which at times feel like a hundred pounds worth of Canon A-1, F-1, and lenses) along for the ride. None of Canon’s SLRs have combined the virtues of compactness and low weight, instead opting for durability and increasingly impressive feature sets. By the same token it’s difficult to explain my affection for old Canons. As someone who values lightness and simplicity, it makes sense. The Voigtländer Bessa R is an oddity in my camera collection, which mostly consists of heavy Canons.
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