Welta Perle camera

by Paul Cowan

Title

Welta Perle camera

Artist

Paul Cowan

Medium

Photograph - Medium Format Film

Description

The Welta Perle 6x4.5cm German-made 1930s self-erecting rollfilm camera. This solidly-built rangefinder includes cross-hairs on the finder glass to help with centring and maintaining correct horizontal and vertical lines. It's quite a basic folding front-focus camera, but with a good quality Compur shutter and a fast lens, Steineheil's 2.9/75mm Cassar. The lens name denotes a triplet (three lens) design, which was probably adequate for this format with black and white film, but was found wanting in the post-war era when Cassars were used in 35mm cameras as well.
The Franka Solida IIL, a German-made 6x6 folding camera with a built-in light meter and a Tessar-type Schneider Xenar lens. This version dates from 1956 and has a flash connection that synchs with modern flashlights as well as the old magnesium flashes. The prontor SVS shutter has an automatic link so that when you set the aperture and shutter-speed if you turn the speed dial the aperture will automatically adjust to keep the same overall exposure. This can be regarded as clever assistance or a pain in the neck, depending on whether you want the two to move in step or not.
This photo was shot using a Pentacon Six medium format camera, a type that was designed in 1955, and Fomapan 200 black and white film. The quality is not perfect but I believe it meets the professional standards expected in the era these cameras were made, which was the objective of the project.

Uploaded

February 23rd, 2013

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