The whole plan was to try out the two Zeiss 21mm lenses. I decided to shoot with the Voigtlander Bessa R4A rangefinder camera body because it has the view frame lines for the 21mm lens.
I have never used the R4A before and was very impressed. This is the greatest little rangefinder I've used in a long time. I liked it better than my Zeiss Ikon. The camera is a wide angle camera... it has three sets of framelines 21/35, 28, 25/50 and was perfect for the 21mm length.
If you've read my recent blogs you'll know that I like rangefinder camera with wide lenses and not so much with the longer stuff. This makes the R4A perfect. It has framelines for all the wide lengths and doesn't cover the longer stuff.
Great viewfinder, easy to focus, nice sound to the shutter and nice feel overall.
The construction feels like all metal, and is very solid. I even like how the rewind know juts up in the back. Now the camera isn't much different than the other Bessa rangefinders R2 and R3 in feel and construction but the framelines are unique on the market.
The camera has "Aperture" priority metering and an electric shutter, which is why it's the R4A, a very similar camera without the automation, but just a light meter and a mechanical shutter is the R4M. Looking at my contact sheets the exposure seems very consistent since I shot all day in the "A" mode.
I think this camera is a winner and sure found it fun to use.
I opened this new camera just for this review, used it for four rolls of film over a couple hour period and am now selling it as a store demo. If you're interested you can find it listed on my website for Traditional Photo Supplies.
Rob Skeoch
www.thepicturedesk.ca
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