well done ...like it .. part 2!!!

I love your enthusiasm for such a tactile piece of precision engineering.

Thank you for this!! I just bought my own visoflex the other day, and as you said at 3:30, there are no markings. I found a serial number, but couldn't trace it back to anything. My visoflex is not exactly like yours, but this is one of the few videos I could find that showed each part. I found a German manual on this from the 1950's, but I can't speak German so that was not really helpful lol.

One of these just came into my care. It is part of my fathers old Leica M3 kit that I am holding onto as he has been moved to palliative LTC and only has a small room. Attached to it is a complete 135mm Hektor f4.5 screw mount (focus ring and all). Testing shows collapsed I can get to about 2 feet from the subject and perhaps with about 1:1 mag. Fully extended I get to about 6inches with maybe 1:3? Not bad actually. And like you, finding info about this thing is hard to do. It is slightly different from yours. It has a different ocular, has no diopter, it rides on standard 15mm rails. Like yours, it has the screw to bayonet adapter on the reflex body as well. The adapter would have been original to the system and perhaps factory installed. I can attest to the fact that it does indeed focus fine with the M3 (a rare 1957 double stroke with steel plate). The problem is, like you discovered, it does not align properly. In my case when mounted in landscape its a full 90 degrees out (clockwise when viewed from the front) so when its mounted in landscape, the viewfinder is to the side, not the top, and when rotated to portrait, its on the bottom. BUT... I suspect this was by design. It is perfectly aligned otherwise. it also has a reflex eyepiece that is angled back toward the user by 45 degrees, which given it is a bellows for macro, actually makes sense when you mount it on a tripod looking down as you normally would as a right handed person. I am going to have to buy a new screw to m bayonet mount adapter so I can mount the 135 directly and use it as a portrait lens. I will also be trying it adapted to my Sony A7. What blows me away is the bellows is 65 years old and still in perfect condition. No tears, no light leaks. And somehow, all of the original Leica lens caps are still present. Oh! And the rubber bands that hold things like the filters in the camera bag... the 65 year old rubber bands? They are still flexible and stretchy... That is the difference between synthetic rubber like we use today, and natural rubber used back then. Also in the kit is the 50mm collapsible Summicron f/2, a 35mm Summicron f/3.5 with the "goggles" viewfinder adapter on it, and the shoe mounted M light meter. There are also a variety of Leitz screw on filters (UV, Yellow, Red - green and blue are missing - and an odd double mirror thing that looks like a ladies powder compact). There is also a small 1.5in boxy thing that looks like it might be part of the meter. No idea what it or the mirror thing are for. Thanks for pointing out the shutter release cable... I knew it was a release but I could not understand why it was doubled. Now I do. All in all, its 95% functional. It seems the built in range finder and the external light meter are both not working for some reason, and the 50mm is very dirty inside... ghosty around the edges. It does not look like mold, but it does need disassembly and cleaning. Regardless, this kit is the coolest thing I posses. It is so well made and so heavy, you just know it was expensive back in the day.

Looking forward to some sample photos. 👍🏼

@photomcbobo705

3 жыл бұрын

Coming soon!

What a fascinating piece of kit. I love the mechanical goodness of everything. Thanks for sharing!

@photomcbobo705

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for comment. Yeah, its pretty cool. Will develop that role today and get the next video up 👍

@krewavi4840

3 жыл бұрын

I realize Im kinda off topic but do anybody know a good website to watch new tv shows online?

@maxkase8166

3 жыл бұрын

@Krew Avi i watch on Flixzone. Just google for it :)

@alfreduriel3275

3 жыл бұрын

@Max Kase yup, been watching on FlixZone for since april myself :D

@krewavi4840

3 жыл бұрын

@Max Kase thank you, signed up and it seems like they got a lot of movies there :) I appreciate it !!