This is a Voigtländer Vito III, a 35mm folding rangefinder camera, made by Voigtländer AG in Braunschweig, West Germany starting in 1950. The Vito III was the last and best featured of their folding Vito line and the only one available with the Ultron f/2 lens. With the exception of the folding apparatus of the camera, the Vito III shares a lot in common with the similar Voigtländer Prominent which was made at the same time. Both cameras have coupled rangefinders. top plate focus controls, and came with the company’s best lens. The Vito III was not in production long and is hard to find today, although copies in good working order are excellent shooters and fetch a premium price in the collector’s market.
Film Type: 135 (35mm)
Lens: 50mm f/2 Voigtländer Ultron coated 6-elements in 4-groups
Focus: 3.5 feet to Infinity
Viewfinder: Coincident Image Coupled Rangefinder
Shutter: Synchro-Compur Leaf
Speeds: B, 1 – 1/500 seconds
Exposure Meter: None
Battery: None
Flash Mount: ASA Port with M and X Flash Sync
Weight: 643 grams
Manual: https://www.cameramanuals.org/voigtlander_pdf/voigtlander_vito_iii.pdf
Voigtländer’s 35mm camera production in the 20th century very closely matched that of Kodak AG in that both companies released similar models with similar features at similar times. Unlike Kodak however, Voigtländer didn’t initially embrace Kodak’s double perforated 35mm film, instead opting for a non-perforated 35mm film in the original Vito. By 1949 however, both companies were using the same film with a growing need for a more premium rangefinder model close behind.
In 1950, Voigtländer would release two premium rangefinder models, one a solid bodied camera with interchangeable lenses called the Prominent, and a fixed lens folding model called the Vito III. The Vito III would be the less expensive option, with a retail price in 1951 of $159.50 compared to the Prominent which sold for $229.50 in 1956 (I could not find ads for both cameras from the same year). Even taking into account inflation between 1951 and 1956, there was likely at least a $50 retail price difference between the two.
The Vito III shared the top plate and rangefinder assembly from the Prominent but featured a compact folding body which differed significantly from the earlier Vito II which remained in production. Instead of a side hinged front door like the Kodak Retina, the Vito III had a bottom hinged door, helical focus, and a faster 6-element 50mm f/2 Voigtländer Ultron lens. The Ultron lens on the Vito III would be similar to the 50mm f/2 Ultron on the Prominent, but would not be interchangeable. If you valued portability and cost over changing lenses, the Vito III was the better choice.
Clearly, people did not value the smaller and more portable model as the Vito III was produced for a much shorter period of time than the Prominent. The Vito III disappeared from Voigtländer catalogs in 1954 whereas the Prominent continued to be offered, and even had a successor model, the Prominent II released in 1958 which stayed in production for a couple more years.
With the incredible variety of cameras produced over the past century and a half, it would be impossible for me to pick a favorite camera model. If I were to think about which company consistently made some of my favorite cameras, I might have to say Voigtländer as models like the Superb, Vitessa L, and Bessamatic have consistently been near the top of my favorite lists.
One camera from Braunschweig however, wasn’t one that connected with me much. When I reviewed the Voigtländer Prominent in November 2018, I found its strange location of controls to be frustrating to use. While holding the camera to your eye, a constant movement of my hands to change focus, set exposure, stabilize, and then fire the shutter caused me difficulty. I remember that while shooting my one and only roll of film through the camera, I couldn’t want to finish it and move onto something else as its ergonomics just didn’t jibe with me.
Now, of course, Voigtländer is no stranger to curious ergonomic choices with things like a horizontal film transport on the Super TLR and long post for advancing the film on the Vitessa, so why didn’t I love the Prominent? Who knows, but after a couple of years of thinking about it, when fellow collector and blogger, Michael Kaplan asked if I wanted to try a “folding Prominent”, I said sure!
Like most German cameras of its era, the Vito III is well built and heavy. The chrome plating and body covering on this example are well preserved as if the camera had only seen limited use in its 70 years of existence. The camera feels heavier than its 643 gram weight suggests, likely due to the folding nature of the camera. With all that metal and glass tucked in together in such a compact camera, it is a very dense camera.
The Vito III is very much like a folding Prominent, as aside from the folding part, the two cameras share many similarities. Up top, the Vito III is almost identical other than lacking in an accessory shoe which was a later addition to the Prominent as earlier models don’t have it. I am unsure if later Vito IIIs received the accessory shoe upgrade, but based on a Google Image search, that does not appear to be the case.
What looks to be a normal rewind knob is actually the focus knob with a folding handle that flips up for rewinding film. This is the same as what appears on the Prominent and would prove to be my least favorite feature of the camera. Everything else about the top plate is similar to the Prominent including the large logo plate in the center, top plate shutter release with separate threaded cable release socket, rewind release button, and film advance knob (later Prominents have a film advance lever).
The bottom of the camera has the same basic shape as the Prominent, with a centrally located 1/4″ tripod socket, a multi-colored film reminder dial which is not explained in the user manual, a small indicator which rotates while film advances through the camera, the front door release button, and lastly, a very large folding kickstand which is required for the camera to sit level on a flat surface with the door open.
Around back we see the circular eyepiece for the viewfinder, a film lock override which allows you to continue to advance the film without first having to press the shutter release after loading in a new roll of film, an embossed Voigtländer logo in the body covering, and in the image to the left, the kickstand on the bottom of the camera, which helps the camera sit level on a flat surface. Also note the exposure counter is beneath the film advance knob. This counter is manually reset and is additive, counting the number of exposures already made starting at ‘1’.
The camera’s left side has the door release for the film compartment. Unlike many cameras of this era in which the door is secured with a sliding latch on the top of bottom edge of the door, the Vito III has a convenient dual push button system, in which you squeeze two chrome buttons above and below the latch to unlock the door. I actually quite like this system as it required two fingers to do it, but is quite a bit easier than having to jam your fingernail under a small metal finger and pull down or up on it.
Inside the right hinged film compartment, the Vito III is surprisingly modern. Film transports from left to right onto a fixed and single slotted take up spool. Dual film rails, all metal construction, and on the inside of the door a metal roller and smooth pressure plate all improve film flatness and smooth film transport.
When loading in a new cassette of film, the supply side fork can be easily lifted out of the way by raising the center portion of the focus knob and lifting up as seen in the image to the right. After installing in a new roll of film, resetting the exposure counter requires lifting up on the film advance knob and manually turning the exposure counter to the “F” position.
With the camera folded open, looking down upon the top of the shutter reveals an easy to read shutter speed and aperture f/stop scale. Shutter speeds are changed by turning the metal ring around the Synchro-Compur shutter. Speeds can also be seen from the front as well. Selecting f/stops requires sliding a metal lever across indicated marks from f/2 to f/16. An ASA flash sync connector is to the right of the 1/500 shutter speed and above the f/5.6 mark. To its right is a small green lever for selecting between M and X flash sync. There is no self-timer on this camera.
Finally, across the very top of the shutter, in front of the top shutter speed scale is the cocking lever. This arm is not coupled to the film advance and must be done separately before firing the shutter. Advancing the film and pressing the shutter release without first cocking the shutter will not only not fire the shutter, but it also engages the double exposure prevention feature, meaning you either have to waste an exposure to do it again, or defeat the double exposure feature by holding down the rewind release button while turning the film advance knob a full turn.
As I handled the Vito III, I remembered my time shooting the Prominent and remembered how much I did not like the top focus knob. Being a left eye shooter, I also remembered not liking the right side location of the eyepiece as it meant I had to hold the camera in an awkward position, but I tried to forget those early complaints and approach this camera with a clean mind. I loaded in a roll of a fresh Fuji 200 and took it out shooting.
As soon as I pulled the wet film from my Paterson tank, I could see I had a roll of what looked to be nicely exposed images, but it wasn’t until I got a critical look at them after scanning, did I notice that a majority of the roll was out of focus. Having shot a large number of rangefinder cameras, I am well aware of how to focus them, so I can only assume some calibration issues were present in the camera I was using. Sadly, I cannot comment on the sharpness of these images, however having a great deal of experience with other Voigtländer lenses, including those with similar Ultron 50mm f/2 lenses, I can say with certainty that with service, the images would have looked great.
Even with the soft, out of focus images here, it is clear that color reproduction is correct as is even exposure across the frame. No vignetting, nor any significant drop offs in image quality are here, further confirming that the Vito III is capable of excellent images.
In use, the Vito III has little in common with the previous folding Vitos, except they all were folding 35mm cameras and they were all named Vito. That’s neither good nor bad but simply a fact. Where the earlier Vitos were simple and easy to use folding cameras, I can’t help but shake the feeling that the Vito III was an over ambitious attempt at over thinking what people expected from a premium folding 35mm rangefinder. Nearly every aspect of using the camera is unnecessarily complicated. The location of the viewfinder, the focus knob, the tiny folding handle for rewinding film, and that the folding door is so huge, the camera needs an equally huge kickstand just to sit flat on a table just echo a camera in which the engineers and designers perhaps weren’t on the same page at the same time.
The Voigtländer Vito III is a well made camera by a company known for high quality and innovative products. The Ultron lens on this example is one of the best ever made and all but guarantees excellent images throughout your entire roll of film. Yet borrowing the very first line of his review of the Voigtländer Prominent, Mike Elek says that camera “…is perhaps the most inconvenient camera I’ve ever lifted to my eye”, an assertion that I think applies just as much to the Prominent as it does the Vito III.
I really wanted to go into shooting this camera with an open mind and not see it simply as a “folding Prominent” but that’s how I felt about it after shooting the first roll. When I saw that the images were out of focus, I had no desire to make a second attempt in the event I perhaps just didn’t do it correctly. This Vito III was a loaner and there are many instances where I borrow a camera, send it back, and then feel instantly compelled to trawl eBay looking for one of my own, and that hasn’t happened with the Vito III. I’ve never once looked at the images of other people’s cameras and wished for one of my own.
Of all German camera makers, Voigtländer takes the biggest swings. Sometimes they hit a homerun like on the Superb TLR and Bessamatic SLR, but sometimes they miss, and sadly the Vito III is closer to a called strike three than a grand slam.
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External Links
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Vito_III
https://www.thelightmixer.com/blog/voigtlaender-vito-iii
https://www.ultrasomething.com/2014/07/the-blacksmiths-lot/
https://connealy.blogspot.com/2021/04/voigtlander-vito-iii.html
http://elekm.net/pages/cameras/vitoiii.htm
https://retinarescue.com/vito3.html
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/the-voigtlander-vito-iii.375022/
http://www.collection-appareils.fr/x/html/page_standard.php?id_appareil=2499
http://web.archive.org/web/20160324033313/http://www.marriottworld.com/vito_cameras/folding.htm (archived)
I briefly owned a Vito III, and it came with a clip-on accessory cold shoe that attached to the top deck. I also never really liked the focus wheel on the top deck. Here is what it looks like.
https://flic.kr/p/2jSiPFF