In the summer of 1996, I was roaming London, visiting car boot sales and the like places. Not looking for anything in particular, just mingling with the crowds, taking photographs, checking stalls laden with anything from crappy stuff to (rarely) something really interesting. Usual places were Camden Market, Angel, Crystal Palace, Clapham, Euston area. I was more interested in the feeling of these places than in photographic equipment. If anything, learning a lot about human interactions, greed and such. And there were things to be learned, trust me.
I came by this little 35mm folder in Camden Market. It was with this occasion that I learned about the Welta cameras, a thing which escaped me until then. Cost was something like a fiver, and I gladly paid that. And so I became the owner of this Welta Weltix camera. Little was I to know then what good friends we were to be.
Surprisingly, the camera worked very well. The bellows were intact, the lens snapped out when released from the body, glass clear, speeds were about right. However, I had to clean up the grime and whatnot, because well, this camera was dirty, and had a nasty tobacco smell to it. And once it was clean, put a film through it.
Apparently made before 1940, these were something of an entry level for the more costly 35mm folder produced by the German company Welta, which was considered to be less important than Zeiss or Voigtlander at the time. Looking at this camera, one may wonder why it looks so familiar. Well, it’s the design, isn’t it? Pretty similar looking with the early models of Kodak Retina. No wonder, because at that time, the Retinas caught the attention of the market, and many producers were interested in the design, but fearful not to infringe upon Nagel’s patent. So if you look closely to the Weltix, you’ll probably see where Welta tried (and succeeded) to avoid any.
The camera is a zone focus one, marked in meters, from 1 to infinity. However, the 1 meter mark is not on the focusing ring, the numbers start from 1.2 meters. The glass is a Steinheil Munchen Cassar 50/2.9, a triplet if I understand correctly. Uncoated of course, but capable of beautiful results when shooting between f5.6 to 8 or 11. Stopped down, it gives a soft image, but nonetheless attractive and somewhat nostalgic.
For this camera, the shutter speeds are quite generous, from B to 300. As these are not clickable, intermediate speed can be set. I noticed the same resistance when turning the shutter dial to 1/300, similar to the 1/500 setting of the Kodak Retina shutter at that speed. The shutter itself is a Compur clockwork, which was not a cheap one at the time. This goes to show the desire to build a good camera, I guess. Regarding the apertures, they’re from 2.9 to 16. I mean, why 2.9? No idea.
The button you see on the top plate between the film winding and frame counter is the advance lock release. In order to shoot the camera, one has to: 1) advance the film, 2) focus, 3) set your speed and aperture, 4) cock the shutter and press the release button. Now, in order to advance the next frame, one has to press the button I’ve just draw your attention to it. This disengages the advance mechanism and lets you advance to the next frame.
The viewfinder is actually a parallax one: a lever under it switches the viewfinder up or down, for “portrait” or “landscape”. What it means is that shooting for closer objects (under 3 or so meters) one has to switch the lever to N (Nahe), for any other further distances use infinity sign next to it.
What else? The frame counter is manual, has to be set every time one puts a fresh roll in the camera. There is no flash shoe, but you get to use a cable release – socket for this is on the lens board, near the shutter cocking lever. To rewind the film, one has to lift the film winding button. A table affixed on the back of the camera comes in handy, if you are so inclined; I do understand it, but never actually used it. It does create a nice feeling for this camera, visually I mean.
I really love this camera, it reminds me of the carefree days from my past, when all I needed was a camera, film and a destination. The rest was unimportant. Or so I thought at the time 🙂 .
These shots here are Fomapan 200 in Perceptol 1+3, from a short length of film, while checking the camera. Considering the age of this folder, and the uncoated lens, results are not too bad, I guess.
