Gary R. Smith
Well-Known Member
The Kodak Retinette 1B (on the left) reminds me quite a bit of one of my Voigtländers. The VITO CLR (on the right) was the camera on which I learned “real” photography some 50 years ago. The Voigtländer was produced between 1962 and ’68 in Braunschweig, Germany some 310 miles from the Nagel Werk in Stuttgart where the Retinette 1b was produced between 1960 and 1963. Voigtländer as an optics and instrument company was founded in 1756 and the brand is still being applied to exceptional lenses.
August Nagel and his friend Carl Drexler founded Drexler & Nagel in 1908 to produce photographic equipment. In 1926 he merged the operation with three other operations with funding from Zeiss to form Zeiss Ikon. By 1932 he had left Zeiss Ikon, formed another operation which he subsequently sold to Eastman Kodak which became Kodak AG based in Stuttgart.
I'll be shooting both with Ilford Fp4+ in the coming weeks and writing up a comparison for 35mmc.
Note that the Kodak is a zone focus camera while the Voigtländer is a true rangefinder.
August Nagel and his friend Carl Drexler founded Drexler & Nagel in 1908 to produce photographic equipment. In 1926 he merged the operation with three other operations with funding from Zeiss to form Zeiss Ikon. By 1932 he had left Zeiss Ikon, formed another operation which he subsequently sold to Eastman Kodak which became Kodak AG based in Stuttgart.
I'll be shooting both with Ilford Fp4+ in the coming weeks and writing up a comparison for 35mmc.
Note that the Kodak is a zone focus camera while the Voigtländer is a true rangefinder.
