Voigtlander Bessa-R Body Silver | $388.95 | |  |
BESSA-R Camera body
Historically, the BESSA was once the cornerstone of precision photographic engineering. After an absence spanning several decades, the BESSA returned last year as a wide-angle scale-focusing camera. Now, the BESSA-R advances the revol
ution of traditional photographic elegance.
Available in both retro silver or black bodies, the BESSA-R is composed of an all aluminum die-cast metal casing with a streamline body that fits comfortably into the palm of your hand making it a paradigm of
design simplicity. It is lightweight, precise, and extremely durable with excellent corrosion resistance. This camera offers precision and reliability under all photographic conditions.
The double bladed mechanical shutter pioneered in the BESSA-L and
incorporated in the BESSA-R is a combination of a mechanically controlled vertically traveling focal plane shutter that can operate up to 1/2000 of a second, and a newly developed metal light-shielding shutter. Reliability of these mechanisms is very hig
h; meaning, the photographer no longer has to keep a lens cap over the front or keep the lens set at a small apertures to avoid the possibility of stray light striking and fogging the film.
TTL center-weighted light metering, measure light reflected fr
om the shielding shutter with a photo receptor device (silicon photocell) at the base of the body. The front of the light shield, which light readings are taken from, is coated 18% gray. Pressing the shutter button halfway activates the light measuring ci
rcuit. LED lights display whether the correct exposure has been selected. The LED lights are positioned in the side of the viewfinder, allowing the exposure accuracy to be checked without the user taking their eye away from the viewfinder allowing the pho
tographer to concentrate on the subject and composition. For convenience, the light meter and LEDs remain active for 12 seconds so that keeping the shutter button pressed is not required while making changes to the shutter speed and aperture.
The “BESS
A-R” features manual lever operated film winding and simple manual film rewinding. In addition, the camera has a highly responsive photographing speed with a shutter noise far more quiet than a SLR camera.
Rangefinder
Unlike its predecessor, the BESSA
-R has a built in viewfinder, which incorporates a coupled rangefinder. Focus rangefinder coupled lenses is achieved simply and accurately by turning the focus ring on the mounted lens until two over-lapping images in the center of the viewfinder line up
horizontally. Though they are not rangefinder coupled, the wider angle Voigtlander 25 and 15mm lenses can be used with the BESSA-R by mounting their viewfinders in the camera’s hot shoe.
Viewfinder
The viewfinder of the BESSA-R is a bright 0.7x magnif
ication finder that has 87% coverage of the film plane at 3 meters. There are framing brackets in the viewfinder for accurate framing at 35, 50, 75 and 90mm lenses. To select which framing brackets appear in the viewfinder, there is a switch at the top of
the camera just left of the hot shoe. The 35mm and 90mm framing brackets appear at the same time while the 50mm and 75mm appear individually.
L-Mount
The BESSA-R is equipped with a highly compatible L-mount system used for interchanging lenses. The a
bility to attach to other L-mounted lenses from Leica, or classic Nikon and Canon rangefinder lenses, makes it an even more versatile camera.
Light metering can be performed with most L-mount lenses, but through the lens (TTL) light metering can not be
performed with lenses having extremely short back-focus
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