Chris Dodkin
West Coast Correspondent
My Werra 1a purchase from EBAY has arrived here in the US - it's in mint condition.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it's brand new and has never been used - there is no dust anywhere, no marks or scratches, no base plate marks - nothing - the leather case is mint and the strap has never been worn.
So somewhere in Bulgaria there seems to be a stockpile of 50s Werra cameras that are brand new.
This is the camera model that my dad purchased in the mid 50s - he had just come pack from Canada where he'd seen the Kodak 35mm cameras in common use, and he wanted something similar for himself.
He spotted this camera advertised in a Sunday newspaper, and was attracted to the Zeiss Tessar lens - he'd never heard of Werra, but he'd certainly heard of Zeiss!
Dad remembers paying about 20 quid for the camera, which would be over 400 quid in todays money - so not cheap.
He bought the camera and also a hand held light meter - A Gossen Sixon Dual, which I remember playing with as a kid - the roll-top cover used to fascinate me.
I went ahead and found one on EBAY to go with the Werra.
This made a nice compact kit - you needed the meter as the Werra had no meter of it's own. In fact the Werra was very very basic, with no rangefinder, just a viewfinder without even any frame lines.
Dad commented that 'you never knew what was going to be in frame' - so it clearly presented a challenge!
The camera has an attractive textured finish, in green, with a screw-on lens cover, which reverses to be a lens hood. It always reminded me of a Thermos Flask cup!
The camera appears to have no film advance - because this is accomplished by rotating the green ring at the base of the lens through 45 Degrees.
This does keep the camera design really clean - and I like the whole concept - it works really well.
You can also see that all of the other controls are on the lens - so from the top down you see aperture, distance (with DOF scale), and shutter speed including Bulb - max shutter speed tops out at 1/250.
The lens is a fast f/2.8 Tessar - 50mm, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the image quality looks.
The other controls are similar to the 60s Rollei 35 I purchased recently, in that they are located on the base plate of the camera - you have the tripod/case mount in the center, a film rewind button, and then the film rewind dial and a frame counter dial.
To load and unload film, you unscrew the tripod mount and the whole lower section of the camera slides off - again, copied by Rollei a decade later.
It's a great looking camera, light weight (cheaper East German Production), but the shutter is smooth and quiet, and the build quality of the lens looks excellent.
The Gossen Meter is clearly rather well used, but still works.
It's a clever meter, allowing both incident and reflective metering - you simply roll over the case cover to measure incident light, and roll it out of the way for reflected light.
ISO is set on a side dial, max 200 - it's a dual scale though (hence the name DUAL) allowing a setting in DIN if preferred.
The meter uses a Selenium photo cell, so no batteries are required - it just works!
To use it - you rotate the adjustment dial until the value of the analog scale matches the number in the small window on the right.
In my picture, the window shows 4 - so assuming that this matched the light meter reading (which it doesn't in the shot sorry!) then you read off the aperture/shutter combinations from the top scale - so 1/500 @ f/1.4 for example.
So, I'm all set and ready to follow in my father's footsteps and shoot with the Werra - He used to shoot mostly slide film, so I'll try some Fuji 100 ASA I have, as well as some B&W Ilford.
I'll post the results as I get them shot and processed.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it's brand new and has never been used - there is no dust anywhere, no marks or scratches, no base plate marks - nothing - the leather case is mint and the strap has never been worn.
So somewhere in Bulgaria there seems to be a stockpile of 50s Werra cameras that are brand new.
This is the camera model that my dad purchased in the mid 50s - he had just come pack from Canada where he'd seen the Kodak 35mm cameras in common use, and he wanted something similar for himself.
He spotted this camera advertised in a Sunday newspaper, and was attracted to the Zeiss Tessar lens - he'd never heard of Werra, but he'd certainly heard of Zeiss!
Dad remembers paying about 20 quid for the camera, which would be over 400 quid in todays money - so not cheap.
He bought the camera and also a hand held light meter - A Gossen Sixon Dual, which I remember playing with as a kid - the roll-top cover used to fascinate me.
I went ahead and found one on EBAY to go with the Werra.
This made a nice compact kit - you needed the meter as the Werra had no meter of it's own. In fact the Werra was very very basic, with no rangefinder, just a viewfinder without even any frame lines.
Dad commented that 'you never knew what was going to be in frame' - so it clearly presented a challenge!
The camera has an attractive textured finish, in green, with a screw-on lens cover, which reverses to be a lens hood. It always reminded me of a Thermos Flask cup!
The camera appears to have no film advance - because this is accomplished by rotating the green ring at the base of the lens through 45 Degrees.
This does keep the camera design really clean - and I like the whole concept - it works really well.
You can also see that all of the other controls are on the lens - so from the top down you see aperture, distance (with DOF scale), and shutter speed including Bulb - max shutter speed tops out at 1/250.
The lens is a fast f/2.8 Tessar - 50mm, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the image quality looks.
The other controls are similar to the 60s Rollei 35 I purchased recently, in that they are located on the base plate of the camera - you have the tripod/case mount in the center, a film rewind button, and then the film rewind dial and a frame counter dial.
To load and unload film, you unscrew the tripod mount and the whole lower section of the camera slides off - again, copied by Rollei a decade later.
It's a great looking camera, light weight (cheaper East German Production), but the shutter is smooth and quiet, and the build quality of the lens looks excellent.
The Gossen Meter is clearly rather well used, but still works.
It's a clever meter, allowing both incident and reflective metering - you simply roll over the case cover to measure incident light, and roll it out of the way for reflected light.
ISO is set on a side dial, max 200 - it's a dual scale though (hence the name DUAL) allowing a setting in DIN if preferred.
The meter uses a Selenium photo cell, so no batteries are required - it just works!
To use it - you rotate the adjustment dial until the value of the analog scale matches the number in the small window on the right.
In my picture, the window shows 4 - so assuming that this matched the light meter reading (which it doesn't in the shot sorry!) then you read off the aperture/shutter combinations from the top scale - so 1/500 @ f/1.4 for example.
So, I'm all set and ready to follow in my father's footsteps and shoot with the Werra - He used to shoot mostly slide film, so I'll try some Fuji 100 ASA I have, as well as some B&W Ilford.
I'll post the results as I get them shot and processed.
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