Otherwise, the interior is beautifully finished and the film easily loaded. It is difficult, time consuming and not very practical. To set it, the film advance sprocket drum, next to the take-up spool, must be turned, using the thumb at the ridged middle part until reaching the desired number. The only quite unusually odd thing about this camera is the frame counter, not the readout itself situated quite conveniently at the back, - below the wind-on lever, but the way in which it is reset. The rewind knob is fully extended to load the film cassette. The camera back is opened by pushing two small latch buttons against each other using two fingers. A small lever on the left-hand side of the shutter housing have settings for M and X flash synchronisation, as well as V for self-timer, shifted when a small button is depressed on the opposite side of the shutter housing. At the left-hand side is the rewind knob at top of the large aperture knob. Next to it is the shutter release and the rewind release lever. The camera has a sturdy wind-on lever at the right-hand side with a flimsy film reminder in the hub. They are easily brought to coincide using the large aperture-control knob under the smaller rewind knob. The light meter needle is visible to the right in the viewfinder, as is a follower pointer with a small circle at the tip. The selenium meter cell window is above the lens, in front of the finder prism where it out of the way for light-obstructing fingers. The focusing ring is at the front of the lens. The viewfinder is bright and the focusing screen has a split image rangefinder, probably the same as found in contemporary Contaflex cameras. The shutter is the behind the lens SLR Synchro-Compur, as found on its fellow competitors, with the EV cross-coupled shutter speed and aperture rings. The Bessamatic is easy to handle and the controls are sound and reliable. Nevertheless, it has all the shortcomings found on these cameras, the finder blackout after exposure and the limited range of interchangeable lenses. The late arrival on the market had helped VoigtlГ¤nder improve the ergonomic design taking advantage of previous designs. This is by far the biggest and heaviest of these three leaf-shuttered SLR cameras, at more than 2 lbs. The Bessamatic was launched by VoigtlГ¤nder in 1959, a few years after the 1953 Contaflex and the 1957 Retina Reflex, all from Germany.

Voigtlander bessamatic repair