This nice little rangefinder camera produced from 1974 to 1976 has a twin sister, the Zeiss Ikon S312, and to make it easy to understand, these cameras were produced by Rollei in Singapore... Well, this shows again how complicated the history of the Camera production has evolved and how complicated it could be to understand exactly were your camera is coming from.
Voigtländer is perhaps one of the oldest optical producers in the world, because it was founded 1756 by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna. This factory produced optical instruments and precision mechanics. 1868 the company moved to Germany and it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the factory produced her first real cameras. The "golden age" of Voigtländer was from 1931 to 1966 with the famous "Bessa" and "Vito" cameras.
After 1966, Voigtländer was merged into the Zeiss Ikon - Stuttgart company (west german part of the former Carl Zeiss factory splitted in 2 different units after the 2nd WW, the other one is the Carl Zeiss Jena factory of Dresden) and totally integrated in it after 1970. As Zeiss Ikon collapsed 1972, the whole Voigtländer/Zeiss Ikon activities where overtaken by Rollei who used their brands to produce some cameras. And that's why we have these twin sister cameras named Voigtländer VF101 or Zeiss Ikon S312.... Enough photo history for now, let's see some characteristics of this camera.
The VF101 is a coupled rangefinder camera with electronic shutter speed. The speed is calculated by the integrated CdS cell located directly on the front of the lens. Inside the viewfinder you have 2 kind of informations: on the top a red mark shows the selected aperture and on the right side a needle indicates the shutter speed with over- and underexposed warning zones. A very easy system to have always good exposed shots! The camera allows you to take shots from 4 seconds to 1/500 s and as the 40mm "Color Skopar" lens opens from 2.8 to 22, you have enough possibilities to take shots in almost every situations. The flash synchronizes at every speed (or at 1/30 in "flash mode").
The lens barrel isn't very big at the first sight: that's because you need to pull out the focusing ring to have access to the asa setting (from 25 to 400) and the aperture selction ring. Very clever to gain space for this little metal camera (490 g weight) and in the same time pulling out the focusing ring gives a sun shade to your lens.
Another thing to say is about the battery: when using the "A" mode, you need originally 4 PX 625 mercury batteries who are no more produced now, but you can easily replace it by one single CR123 after a little transformation of the battery compartment (for more infos, have a look here)
Well, this camera is a very nice one, easy and quick to use for your everyday photographic activities or for holidays, the pictures are colorful, well contrasted and sharp. I like taking pictures with it because of it's discretion (small size, quick settings and very silent shutter) and solid construction (putting together the knowledge of Voigtländer, Zeiss Ikon and Rollei in one little camera is a good guarantee of quality....). Here are some shots I took with the VF101 during a demonstration:
If you want to know more have a look at 35 mm-compact.com or the Voigtländer page on Camerapedia with many other links about this prestigious company.
