This is a Voigtländer Prominent, a folding bed rangefinder camera made by Voigtländer & Sohn AG in Braunschweig, Germany starting in 1932. The Prominent shoots both 6cm x 9cm and 4.5cm x 6cm images on 120 format roll film. Shooting of the smaller exposures requires a removable mask to be inserted into the film compartment. At the time of its release, the Prominent was one of the most advanced and fully featured folding cameras on the market, featuring the highest build quality, Germany’s best shutters and lenses, a coupled rangefinder, extinction light meter, and a long list of other features not commonly found on folding cameras of the day. In addition to its long list of features, the Prominent was also extremely expensive and out of the price range of most people, so only a few were sold, making them very difficult to find today.
Film Type: 120 Roll Film (eight 6cm x 9cm or sixteen 4.5cm x 6cm exposures per roll)
Lens: 10.5cm f/4.5 Voigtländer Braunschweig Heliar uncoated 5-elements in 3-groups
Focus: 0.9 meters to Infinity
Viewfinder: Scale Focus with 4.5cm x 6cm baffle and split field coupled rangefinder
Shutter: Compur Leaf
Speeds: T, B, 1 – 1/250 seconds
Exposure Meter: Uncoupled Extinction Meter
Battery: None
Flash Mount: None
Other Features: Self-Timer, Extinction Meter, Helical Focus
Weight: 780 grams
Manual: https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/01176/01176.pdf
How these ratings work |
The Voigtländer Prominent is a one of a kind, top tier folding camera, that when first released had a list of features never before seen before. In the years it was made, the camera has largely been forgotten as few were sold, and despite a long list of features, is still just another folding camera. The Prominent’s value is in his historical significance, not as a shooter. Despite an accurate rangefinder and clever extinction meter, neither are necessary to make good images, and considering the high price these cameras fetch, there are many more cost effective options for prewar folding cameras. | ||||||
| Images | Handling | Features | Viewfinder | Feel & Beauty | History | Age | |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 40% | |
| Bonus | None | ||||||
| Final Score | 14.0 | ||||||
History
When it comes to firsts, Voigtländer gets to say that of all the optics companies that have ever existed, they were the first. Founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna, Austria in 1756, Voigtländer is older than photography itself. While ownership of the company has shuffled and been reorganized a couple of different times over the years, the Voigtländer brand is not only the world’s oldest optics brand, it is one of the oldest brands in any industry in the whole world.
In the 18th century, Voigtländer was a maker of scientific instruments such as navigational tools like compasses and astrolabes. Voigtländer held state-owned patents from the Austrian government which granted them exclusive rights to produce these instruments, so it is likely they were the only company making them.
After Johann Christoph Voigtländer’s death in 1797, the company would pass onto his widow and three sons. In the early 19th century, the company would expand its product portfolio to include early optical instruments. In my research for this article, I could not find many specific references to what Voigtländer made in the early 1800s, but my guess would be military or naval type products like scopes, binoculars, or perhaps even eyeglasses. I found some information saying that in 1823, they made opera binoculars.
Voigtländer would expand to photographic products around the year 1840 when they introduced the first optical lens designed using a modern understanding of mathematics and the physics of light. This first lens was called the Petzval lens and was designed by Hungarian Professor Jozef Maximilián Petzval. Prior lenses to the Petzval were just curved pieces of glass with little to no thought put into the physics of how light would pass through them.
The Petzval lens was significant because its aperture was around the modern equivalent of f/3.7 which meant that it could let in a great deal more light than the pinhole lenses previously used. This meant that an image could be captured in as little as 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes, making it much easier to capture someone’s portrait.
Voigtländer’s first camera was an all-metal daguerreotype released in 1841 called the Daguerreotyp-Apparat zum Portraitiren. This camera was made of brass and was shaped somewhat like a bowling pin. There was a fat end where the lens resided, and a thinner end with a ground glass focusing screen and a magnifying eyepiece that the photographer would use to get the image in focus.
These early cameras did not have any type of shutter. A lens cap was manually placed over the end of the tube to prevent light from entering the camera. Once the photographer had his image composed and in focus, he would put the lens cap back on, cover the camera using a box or a dark cloth, and remove the back section that contained the ground glass and eyepiece. He or she would replace this part with a traditional daguerreotype plate and then would remove the lens cap for whatever length of time was needed to expose the image. Upon completion of the exposure, the lens cap would be placed back on the front of the camera, and the entire apparatus would be moved into a dark room, where the plate would be removed and developed. As primitive and complicated as this sounds today, this was groundbreaking stuff back then. Prior to these early daguerreotypes, the only way we could capture an image was by paint.
Over the course of the next 2 decades, Voigtländer would continue to be the world leader in photographic lens manufacturing. In 1862, the company would produce its 10,000th Petzval lens. In 1868, Voigtländer’s company headquarters would relocate from its original location in Vienna, Austria to Braunschweig, Germany where the company would remain until at least the end of World War II.
Voigtländer wouldn’t release another camera until around 1890 (some sources state it was after 1900), when they would release a Reisekamera which is a generic name meaning “travel camera” in German. Many manufacturers made similar style cameras and it can be extremely difficult to identify who made a particular Reisekamera because the parts were wooden, modular, and lacked any unique differences between all the companies making them at the time. So while it is possible Voigtländer had a variety of these style of cameras, it is almost impossible now to identify them as an actual Voigtländer model.
As film photography would gain momentum in the 1900s with models from the Eastman Kodak company and other German makers, Voigtländer would eventually make a more serious effort into designing their own cameras. In the first two decades of the 20th century, the company would release a wide range of folding plate cameras with names such as Scheren-Camera, Alpin, Stereophotoskop, and Avus. Also around this time, Voigtländer would begin to experiment with new, more advanced lens designs which would be called the Heliar, Helomar, Dynar, and Kollinear lenses. Each of these lenses would be predecessors to the Skopar and Color-Skopar lenses which would be extremely successful later in the 20th century.
Voigtländer had great success around this time as both a maker of fine plate cameras and lenses. In 1915, the company would outgrow its original factory in Braunschweig and would move to a larger facility on the other side of the town. When the first World War broke out, Voigtländer would make military products for the German war effort.
After the war however, the company struggled due to the collapse of the German economy. Several key employees would leave the company such as Rudolf Heidecke and Paul Franke who would form their own company Franke & Heidecke, who would later become one of the premiere German camera makers of the 20th century with their lineup of Rolleiflex cameras.
Things would stabilize around 1925 when Voigtländer would be acquired by German chemicals company, Schering AG. Around this time, Voigtländer would increase their output of more consumer oriented roll film cameras with names like Avus, Beatrice, Inos, and a whole series of cameras simply named the Voigtländer Rollfilm.
By 1928, Voigtländer had a wide range of roll film cameras to choose from, but none that really stood above a large number of competing models being sold by other German companies. To further expand the company’s portfolio into more upscale models, Voigtländer’s parent company would found its own design office in Berlin, run by Schering’s director Àrpàd Barènyi. Barènyi had a background as a designer and inventor and started work on a whole new series of cameras and shutters. The first patents credited to Barènyi would be filed in 1928 for a barrel shaped viewfinder.
Although not credited as the overall designer of any particular model, Barènyi’s influence would be seen on a large number of Voigtländer cameras such as a new 6cm x 6cm twin lens reflex called the Voigländer Superb. The Superb would have a number of innovative features that would allow the company to compete head to head with the very popular Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex that had been in production since 1929.
In addition to the Superb, a series of new folding “Springkameras” were designed with names like Perkeo, Virtus, Bessa, and Prominent. The term “Springkamera” refers to those model’s spring loaded self-erecting designs. No longer would the user have to fold open the camera and pull out the shutter and lens in separate steps. Voigtländer overcame a problem of earlier folding cameras in which the quick action of opening the camera created a vacuum effect, thus sucking the film into the bellows, by including two small openings near the back of the bellows that would allow air to pass through, avoiding a vacuum from being created. Each of the three cameras came in rigid die-cast aluminum bodies with genuine leather coverings and ornate designs for controls like the film advance and other controls. Like the Superb, none of the “Springkameras” can be directly attributed to Àrpàd Barènyi, but aspects of his designs were incorporated into all of the cameras.
In the case of the Prominent, Voigtländer went all out, adding a number of innovative features like a coupled rangefinder and an extinction meter. While these features were not new to photography, to have them all on a single model was unprecedented. Early prototypes of the Voigtläder Prominent had a Schering designed “Turbo” leaf shutter which claimed to have a top shutter speed of 1/400, which would have been very fast at the time. An early prototype showing this shutter also features a unique Kepler-style telescopic viewfinder which was later scrapped when the camera gained dual format capabilities.
Problems with the Turbo shutter’s reliability caused the company to scrap it in favor of a Compur leaf shutter with top 1/250 shutter speed. According to records, five prototypes of the Prominent with a Turbo shutter were produced, but it is not clear whether these were ever sold to the general public,. With only five ever made, examples with the Turbo shutter are extremely rare. While researching this article, I could only find an image of one, sold at the Leitz Photographica Auction Nr 16 in April 2013 for a price of €3,600.
The Prominent had a number of unique characteristics, one of which was that the focusing helix could be adjusted with the camera open or collapsed and it would retain its distance each time the camera was opened and closed. a clever system consisting of a chain linkage to the folding bed, along with a coiled spring eliminated the need to set the camera to infinity each time it was closed, like most folding cameras.
The rangefinder uses what’s called a “split field’ design which employs prisms instead of reflective mirrors. A total of four prisms and five glass elements are used to deliver a very bright and easy to see image. One half the split image passes through an optical prism which is coupled to the focus knob. Turning the knob turns the prism which changes its angle of view. Voigtländer referred to this as “automatic focusing” which for obvious reasons is not the same use of the term we use today. The Prominent is not an “auto focus” camera but rather has ‘a coupled rangefinder that automatically focuses the lens to the rangefinder’s set focus distance’.
Another very interesting feature is the unique extinction meter with automatic exposure calculator. Unlike most extinction meters, in which light passing through an incrementally darker semi transparent film allows you to see numbers or letters, which correspond to a chart in which the darkest number or letter indicates the proper exposure value, the Prominent employs a much more complicated unit which allows you to set film speed, and aperture, and then by looking through a window, turn a dial until a series of vertical lines can no longer be seen, at which point, the correct shutter speed is chosen. My explanation here is very short and probably confusing, as I don’t think any amount of typing will ever get across how it works, you just need to hold one and try it out for yourself to see.
Most models of the Prominent have a Compur leaf shutter with speeds from 1 – 1/250 and a self-timer mechanism. The camera normally comes with the company’s excellent 5-element 10.5cm f/4.5 Heliar, but some have been found with 4-element Skopar lenses as well.
The Voigtländer Prominent was a high end folding camera and justifiably, came with a high end price. In Central Camera’s 1935 catalog, the camera sold with the Heliar lens for $98.50, which when adjusted for inflation, compares to about $2250 today, making it quite an expensive folding camera.
It seems as though the ambitious feature set and lofty price of the Prominent was too much for the average photographer who preferred simpler folding cameras as the Prominent sold slowly. An estimated 10,000 were produced between 1932 and 1935 at which point the camera was discontinued in favor of simpler models. The company would produce a scaled down Bessa through the early postwar years, making it the company’s 6×9 folder of choice.
Strangely, the name Prominent would be used again in the 1950s, this time in a series of 35mm interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras produced from 1952 to 1958. Apart from the name, the two Prominents shared nothing in common, apparently the company just liked the name.
Voigtländer would continue to have success through the mid 20th century, but changes in the preferences of photographers and the rise of the Japanese camera industry spelled doom for the company. With a reputation as a maker of expensive and complex products, Voigtländer was unable to compete. Schering AG would sell the company in 1956 to Carl Zeiss Foundation which led to a merger with Zeiss-Ikon in 1965 which resulted in several co-branded Zeiss-Ikon/Voigtländer models. This did little to improve the situation as in 1971 Zeiss-Ikon would cease all camera operations and sell off many of its assets including the original Voigtländer factory in Braunschweig. The rights to the company would exchange hands in 1974, 1982, and in 1997 to Rollei, Plusfoto, and Ringfoto. The Voigtländer name still exists today, primarily as a lens maker, but the current day company has little to nothing in common with the original 18th century company.
Today, many Voigtländer cameras are desirable by collectors for a combination of reasons. First, were their build quality. Voigtländer generally made good cameras, so most cameras are above average in terms of quality. Models with the company’s Heliar lenses are especially valuable. In addition to their quality, early models like the folding Prominent often had distinct looks and features that other camera makers of the era didn’t make.
The folding Prominent is especially desirable for its combination of good looks, lens, and long list of features. Finding an example like this in good working condition is not easy and working examples have been sold in excess of $2000. A quick eBay search returns six examples for sale with the lowest asking price being $1699. These are wonderful cameras, but very rare and for those who are lucky enough to find one, could be too valuable to shoot. You’ll just need to find some online blogger to do it for you and tell you how it is!
My Thoughts
My relationship with folding cameras is what I’d describe as complicated. The very first vintage film camera I ever bought and wrote about on this site was a folding Kodak, and while I have shot a great many of other folding cameras, their fragility is often a deterrent to me wanting to use them. Sure, I know that many early folders were very well built and have excellent lenses capable of really nice images, when it comes down to it, I more times than not, lean towards solid body cameras, or at least 35mm folding cameras like the Kodak Retina or AGFA Karat.
When I had a chance to shoot the original folding Voigtländer Prominent however, I had no problem loading it up and taking it out shooting. Of all the traditional “folding bed” style cameras that were made in the 20th century, the Prominent is the most advanced. I cannot think of another folding camera with this combination of excellent build quality, excellent lens, a coupled rangefinder, exposure meter, and dual film formats. Yes, please I said, when the camera showed up on my desk.
I don’t know whose responsibility it was working at Voigtländer in the 1930s to come up with names for their cameras, but whoever it was did a great job as both the Superb and Prominent accurately describe the cameras whose names they are affixed to. Quite simply, the Prominent is the highest quality, nicest looking, and best featured folding camera I’ve ever held. The body is all metal, and very solid, the leather covering is of high quality and despite being over 90 years old, is still supple and affords a lot of grip, the look and feel of the various controls like the advance and focus knobs, and the knobs of the extinction meter are elegant and have a very nice tactile feel. You don’t need me to tell you this is a stunning camera, just look at it!
With the camera open and sitting on a flat surface, the top of the camera has the strange shape of the rangefinder assembly. A unique design in which two split prisms reflect light down two round tubes protruding out of the side of the camera resembles the design used on the Super Kodak Six-20. The rangefinder is made up of four prisms and five glass elements, not only making it incredibly complex, but also very bright and easy to use. Unlike later rangefinders made up of semi-reflective beamsplitters, nearly 100% of the light entering the two rangefinder windows makes it to your eye. Also visible from this side of the camera are two round grips that when squeezed together, unlock the film compartment door, allowing it to swing downward.
Turning the camera on its side so that the door is on the left, we see the main optical viewfinder in the center. This is a straight through optical design with a default 6×9 aspect ratio, but a hinged door on the front swings into position to reduce it to 4.5×6 for use with removable baffles that go into the film compartment. To the left of the viewfinder is the film advance knob, which like all the knobs on the Prominent are made of a hollowed out nickel plated metal which has a very elegant design. Voigtländer used this style of knob on several premium folding cameras from this era including the Virtus, Bessa, and Perkeo. Above and to the right of the advance knob is a recessed hole which has some sort of little finger inside of it. There are a total of four of these holes, two on each side of the camera, whose function I am uncertain of. They are not cable release sockets, and pressing on the little finger doesn’t do anything, even the Prominent’s user manual makes no mention of what they do.
On the opposite site is the very large extinction meter, which was a primitive type of exposure meter used on cameras at the time. Although I have used a number of extinction meters before, the one on the Prominent is unlike any other which I will explain in the next paragraph. To the right of the meter is a nickel plated post, that when pulled up, retracts the shaft that holds the roll of film on the supply side. Pulling up on this shaft while inserting a new roll is necessary for it to fit.
The extinction meter has three moving pieces which encompass the meter itself and the automatic exposure calculator, that when used correctly, tells you the correct shutter speed and aperture f/stop to be used with a given film speed and amount of light. The top piece has three round windows, each with a dark blue, light blue, and white window. The meter has a round eyepiece facing the rear of the camera and is designed to be used where the three colored windows are facing the light source you plan on measuring. So for images which are in front of you, the camera must be facing the ground, so that you may look into the eyepiece and light may enter through one of the three windows.
The first step in using the meter is to choose which of the three colored windows most appropriately match the amount of light you want to measure. The dark blue window is used in bright sunlight, the light blue is used in average light, and the white window is used in low light. This changes the tint of the light that passes through the meter. The next step is to line up an arrow to the right of the f/4.5 settings on the aperture ring with the film speed you are using. In the images of this camera, there is some paint loss on the aperture ring making it difficult to see, but trust me, there is an arrow there. The film scale engraved into this camera is listed as DIN 0 through 20 which according to Wikipedia is the “old DIN” standard where numbers are written in a fraction over /10. In the Prominent’s user manual, a scale using the Scheiner scale is used.
With an appropriate colored window selected, and a chosen aperture f/stop lined up with whatever DIN film speed was loaded into the camera, you’d hold the camera to your chest, with the lens facing down, then look through the meter’s eyepiece with the windows facing forward and look for vertical lines to appear in the circular window. The largest ring around the base of the meter changes the thickness and spacing between the vertical lines seen through the meter’s eyepiece. The idea is that you should turn this ring until the vertical lines are barely visible. If they are clearly visible, you must continue to turn the ring until they almost disappear. Once you get to this point, look at whatever shutter speed lines up with whatever f/stop you’ve chosen. If the shutter speed and f/stops don’t perfectly line up, just choose one that is closest.
For example, if you’ve selected the light blue window and have DIN 20 film loaded into the camera and you’ve selected an f/stop of f/5.6 and after turning the ring, you get to the point where the vertical lines are just barely visible, look at whatever shutter speed is closest to f/5.6 and use that. If you want to shoot at f/11, just pick whatever shutter speed is closest to that.
If you are scratching your head at reading this, you’re not alone. I don’t expect many people to fully understand it without seeing it in action first so I made a short video which hopefully makes it easier to understand. Extinction meters may not be the most advanced, but they also don’t require batteries that could corrode or electronic circuits which can lose sensitivity over time.
Flip the camera over so the film door is on the right, starting on the left we have another post which further helps load film into the camera. Above and to the right is another one of those mysterious holes in the camera, but next to this one is a metal button which releases the front of the camera when it is folded up. Next is a 3/8″ tripod socket for shooting the camera in 6×9 landscape or 4.5×6 portrait orientation. Like most German cameras from the 1930s, tripod sockets were larger than they are today, so if you wanted to use this camera on a modern tripod, you’d need an adapter to the smaller 1/4″ size. Near the center of this side of the camera is the focusing knob. The Prominent uses a very unique and complex spring loaded rack system which moves the entire folding bed, shutter, and lens. Distances from just under 1 meter to infinity are engraved into the round plate below the knob. Unlike most folding cameras with moving beds, the one here uses a spring loaded system which can retain a chosen focus distance even when the camera is folded shut. If you set the focus distance to 4 meters and then fold it shut, when you open it back up, it will still be at 4 meters. You can even change focus distance with the camera closed. Finally, on the far right is another film compartment post, this time for the take up side.
Looking at the rear of the camera with optical viewfinder facing up, there is a square depth of field chart, showing what will be in focus at various f/stops and focus distances. The chart is entirely in German, but it is easy enough to figure out, even if you don’t read it. Next to the exposure chart are two different red windows for reading exposure numbers on the backing paper of the film. When shooting 6×9 exposures, only the red window nearest the rangefinder eyepiece is used. If shooting 4.5×6 images, both windows must be used. This is done because film of the era did not include exposure numbers on the backing paper. Each 6×9 exposure number must be used twice, the first exposure is made when the number ‘1’ appears in the first window, the second is made with the number ‘1’ in the middle window, the third is made with the number ‘2’ in the top window and so on. The 16th and final exposure is made when the number ‘8’ is in the middle window.
With the camera folded open, there is nothing to see on the film door hinge side, but on the front face of the door, which would be facing down, is a second 3/8″ tripod socket for shooting the camera in 6×9 portrait or 4.5×6 landscape orientation. A folding kickstand is near the front lip of the door, for stabilizing the camera when set on a flat surface.
With the camera on its side and the viewfinder facing up, the left hinged film door swings open to reveal the film compartment. Film transports from right to left using traditional 120 film format spools. Earlier versions of this camera would have had wooden core spools, but metal and modern plastic ones will work fine in this camera as well. Inside the film door is a large metal pressure plate that helps maintain pressure as the film passes over the film gate. You’ll notice that in four locations above and below the film gate are metal rivets which are used to hold the removable baffles for reducing the film side down to 4.5×6. These baffles are made of very thin pieces of metal with notches in them that are held in place by these rivets.
Assuming these haven’t been lost, you’ll notice a pair of these same rivets on the inside of the film door which are there to hold the baffles when not in use. I was lucky enough that this example of the camera still had both baffles, but they are extremely thin and tricky to get into the correct position. Once there however, you can take sixteen 4.5×6 images per roll of film.
Up front, the Prominent has a Voigtländer branded Nr. 0 Compur shutter. This version of the Compur leaf shutter is designed for medium format cameras and has a top speed of 1/250. Later versions of the Nr. 0 Compur-Rapid went up to 1/400, but this model predates the use of the Rapid shutter. Shutter speeds are changed via a ring around the perimeter from 1 to 1/250 plus T and B. The lens aperture is changed with a small finger near the bottom of the shutter. Aperture f/stops from 4.5 to 22 are engraved into a small plate. Near the 10 o’clock position around the shutter is the cocking arm. The shutter must be cocked before using any of the instant speeds from 1 to 100, but does not need to be cocked for either B or T speeds. In fact, if the shutter is already cocked, an interlock will prevent you from choosing either of the T or B speeds. When pressing the cocking lever to the limit of its movement, you’ll notice a small round button that can be pressed back to push the cocking lever into an additional position which activates the self-timer. Only when holding this lever back while cocking the shutter can you activate this feature. Near the 8 o’clock position around the shutter is the shutter release, which works as you’d expect. When looking at the side of the shutter, just below the cocking lever, is a threaded hole for a shutter release cable. The Compur shutter has no provision for flash synchronization.
Whether it was a consequence of the unique way the Prominent focuses, or a purposeful design decision by Voigtländer, the way in which you close the camera is pretty unique. Unlike many folding cameras where closing is down by pressing inward on strut hinges or by squeezing two posts beneath the lens, the Prominent uses a metal latch on the left side of the inner door. Closing the Prominent requires a bit more force than I am used to, as you must first press down on the little latch to unlock it, while simultaneously pressing inward toward the body of the camera to retract the front. This sounds more complicated than it really is, but it does take a little to get used to compared to other folders.
The viewfinder and rangefinder are separated by a great deal of distance and due to the orientation of the rangefinder on a different side of the camera, going back and forth between the two is not as easy as it would be on a camera like the Leica III or an Argus C3. Still, for the era in which this camera was made, the combination of a bright and easy to use optical viewfinder and a bright split field rangefinder was nothing short of amazing.
Looking through the split image rangefinder, the image is very bright and clear. Because of the use of prisms, the line between the split image is crisp and very precise unlike mirror based rangefinders in which the lines can blur. Lining up vertical lines to see the split is very easy, even in low light which again, is easier than on beamsplitter based rangefinders. I generally liked the viewfinders on the Prominent, but one nitpick was that the 4.5×6 mask must be perpetually swing out to shoot the camera in 6×9 mode, which is how I think the camera would spend a majority of its time. Having this small mask like this increases the chances it could get snagged on something.
The Voigtländer Prominent is a lot of camera. The people who designed it clearly spared no expense in making what they thought was the highest quality, fully loaded camera they could. Having so many cutting edge features not only elevated it to the top of the camera hierarchy at the time, but it also elevated the price. This was a high end, high featured, high cost camera that sold in low numbers for a short period of time. For those of who owned it though, likely slept well at night knowing they had the best camera money could buy. But did spending a lot of money on this camera translate into a good shooting experience? Keep reading…
My Results
Eager to see the results of the prewar Heliar lens in glorious 6×9, I loaded in a roll of semi-expired Kodak Portra 160 NC and took the Prominent with me on a short trip to upper Michigan. I had planned on shooting a second roll, but some unavoidable delays prevented me from getting to the second roll.
As I expected, the images I got from the Prominent were stunning. Sharpness is consistent across the entire image, no vignetting or softness was evident, even in the corners, and I saw no obvious optical anomalies. The 5-element Heliar is a top tier lens that has earned a reputation for being as good as any German lens out there. That this lens was the only one available speaks to Voigtländer’s commitment to make this camera the best they could.
This being an uncoated lens, the Heliar shows a subtle lack of contrast, especially with color film. Had this camera had a more modern single, or multi coating, it would have rendered razor sharp, almost digital-like images. The lack of coating, and that I used expired color film, returned muted colors with an overall pastel look to it.
I’ve covered quite extensively the features of the Prominent, so hopefully it is clear by this point that this is a remarkable camera with several features which were ahead of their time, giving the camera a level of complexity never before seen. Rather than revisit the strengths of the camera, the question I’d like to answer is whether the long list of features added up to a more enjoyable shooting experience.
My answer to that question is no, and I think that is part of the reason this camera was produced for such a short length of time. In the 1930s, there were a number of high end folding cameras. Kodak AG made the Regent and Zeiss-Ikon had the Super Ikonta, and save for she Super Ikonta, the others were not produced after the war.
The biggest reason for this, I believe, is that by adding more features to a compact, folding camera doesn’t make it better. Although the rangefinder is very bright and easy to use, I am not going to use a camera like the Prominent to take close-ups or portraits of people which require precision focus. With a relatively slow f/4.5 lens and a large 6×9 image, my use for this camera is going to be of group shots, or large sweeping landscapes. I want to use the large size of the negative and sharpness of the Heliar to capture detailed images far away where a rangefinder is less useful.
The extinction meter, while infinitely cool, is slow and clunky, and really isn’t all that necessary in most instances. I think that in the 1930s, most people were still used to using exposure charts, or other types of handheld exposure calculators. For me, Sunny 16 is “good enough” to make properly exposed outdoor images. In each of the 8 images in the gallery above, I used neither the rangefinder, nor the meter.
Certainly I got good images, however I didn’t need a camera with the complexity of the Prominent. I believe I would have gotten just as nice of images with an entry level Voigtländer Bessa, an Agfa Billy-Record 4.5, or a Kodak Vollenda 620. The Voigtländer Prominent is that rare camera that is both advanced and expensive, but really doesn’t do anything better than cameras costing significantly less. This holds true when you consider the $2250 inflation adjusted price from 1935 or the ~$2000 collector’s price being asked for these cameras today. Quite simply, by spending more on this camera, you’re not likely to get better images.
Of course, my lack of praise doesn’t add up to a bad camera, I just think that with the rarity of a model like this, the Prominent is one that probably should be left on the shelf. For those instances where the portability of a folding camera and a large negative size is desirable, you have many more economically priced alternatives.
For the collector who wants one of the coolest looking, feature rich, and highest quality folding cameras ever made, there is no substitution for the Voigtländer Prominent. If this is a camera that is already on your radar and you have deep enough pockets to afford it, then don’t let me dissuade you from buying one. If however, reading this review has given you some GAS, consider this your Pepto-Bismol.
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External Links
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Prominent_(6%C3%979)
https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/voigtlander%20prom69.htm