Balda Baldessa 1a - A Curvy Camera Curiosity

It’s a claim I often make when discussing my hobbies and (numerous) specialist interests. Yes, of course I like to acquire things, quite a lot of things in truth, but that doesn’t in fact make me a collector, no-no!*. Just the right number of things to satisfy an interest, and no more. A 'roundabout' figure that leaves plenty of room for casual acquisition, but precludes the mission creep of actual collecting.

I will claim, if asked…

So how many film cameras does a level-headed chap need to adequately indulge his passion? One of everything? Several iterations of a particular model? One example of each format?… Well for me, it's one slightly difficult one, and an easier one as a spare, but ask me again in (say) 12 months time and we’ll see where we are eh!

The trouble is that temptation lies around every corner, particularly if you’re no stranger to Flea Markets, Car Boots, and the multiverse of High Street Charity Shops. And of course many vintage film cameras are quite cheap, often ridiculously so, which is hardly fair!

I acquired my 'spare' from an eye-catching window display in a nearby charity shop. First choice was a smart looking minimalist Minolta that proved too lightweight and plasticky for my taste. It also required batteries, I don’t do batteries. A big old clunky Zenit SLR, some Instamatics, a couple of Box Brownies, several uninspiring 80’s Point and Shoots, none of which hit the spot. A curvy German Rangefinder for just £20 however...

There's already a fair bit of discussion online about the Balda ‘Baldessa’ series of cameras, for the most part it’s all quite positive. Like me they find the curved body of the camera attractive and nice to hold, and whilst the layout is undeniably quirky, it's also regarded as being surprisingly intuitive in use, a rare example of good original design. The lens and photographic quality are apparently quite decent, helped along by a 45mm Fixed Lens which achieves focus by moving the whole lens and shutter mechanism as a single unit, rather than adjusting separate elements of the optics. This one is a Baldessa 1a, the mid-point between the original Zone Focussing camera introduced in 1957, and the 1b which comes with a Selenium Light Meter. The combined Rangefinder and viewing window on the 1a is big and bright, and given that I use a Light Meter app for setting exposure I'm happy to have this particular model.

10 minutes of fiddling and firing the camera in the shop confirmed that everything seemed to be working well. I can confirm that if you ever get a chance to play with a Baldessa yourself, you too will surely want to own one, they really are a fun camera to use.

So, what else can I say about this lovely little camera that hasn't already been said before? The Leather Case?… I’m left with telling you about the leather case. Yes, it really has come to this. An absolute clunker of solid German engineering. Hard brown leather, soft velvet lining, a crash-proof strip of Aluminium around the edge. A proper Volvo of a camera case. Ugly, functional, safe as houses, and I absolutely hate it and all cases like it!

Nobody seems to have mentioned the little Three Leaf Shutter logo on the Shutter Speed ring of the lens, so I'll mention it. This is the logo for the Gauthier company which designed the Prontor-SVS Shutter that these cameras use to good effect, AGC being the abbreviation for Alfred Gauthier, founder of the company in Calmbach, Germany.

Of course the only way to be sure a vintage camera works as it should do is to load it up with film, and shoot it off. Shoot like crazy as it happens because I need to trial the camera ahead of a music festival I'm going to this week. So I took it out for a long walk in tandem with the FED, a Fujiclolour 200 for the German camera, a Kentmere Pan 100 for the Soviet model. Needless to say the Baldessa takes a roll of film without any of the fiddle, faff, and pliers of the FED, a strong factor in deciding which camera I end up taking to the festival, although in truth I may just take them both.

[*I am of course, most men are to be fair]

Looking Down On Life - An Adams & Co Viewfinder

Another day, another Viewfinder to look into. A particularly nice one at that, proper solid Brass with no less than three glass lenses, and a bona fide antique as far as I can tell. They certainly knew how to build these things back then, though I have to say this was clearly not built for a 35mm compact camera.

How do I know this? Well, Adams & Co, the London company that made these patented viewfinders, doesn’t seem to have survived as a significant manufacturing company into the era of compact cameras. Their forte was building high-end Plate Cameras in the early days of photography, which is presumably what this Viewfinder was designed for. The big giveaway though is the mounting ‘foot’ which is clearly not designed to fit a standard cold shoe, and one of the reasons I decided on the risky move of disassembling my example. Another reason is that I like disassembling things, and maybe the optics would benefit from a bit of a clean and polish.

As it was, all three of the Viewfinder’s glass optics were fine, even the 100+ year old mirror was merely showing its age in that rather attractive way old mirrors do, perfectly useable with just a few spots where the mirroring has perished over the years. Needless to say the brass case is missing one of its teeny-tiny screws, a screw I'll probably never find a replacement for. Why do these things always have a screw missing?

So all that really needed doing was some serious adjustment to the steel foot so it would sit comfortably into a Cold Shoe, ideally somewhat proud of the camera’s body so it wouldn’t interfere with the Shutter Dial. I’d like to say this was a precision job, fully respecting the age of a delicate antique instrument. In truth it was a 'bend-and-hope' job with a pair of old pliers, because the even tinier screws holding the steel strip to the bottom of the brass casing couldn’t be shifted so I had to do it in situ, not ideal!

Mission accomplished though, albeit that the whole thing rocks a little on the cold shoe so needs a little finessing yet. The image is satisfyingly bright and clear and gives approximately the same 50mm view as the FED’s own viewer. It also looks OK on the camera.

Best of all though, those technical wizards at Adams & Co designed their Viewfinder with a mask that can be rotated to show the field of view in Portrait (left), or more handily from the perspective of my cameras, Landscape (below). It's a bit stiff but it works, and means that unlike my other Waist Level Viewer, I shouldn't have to add my own framing lines to a lens