Voigtlander Brillant – A Pseudo TLR, with Real Potential
A Pseudo TLR, with Real Potential
90 years old, and still buttery smooth, the Voigtlander Brillant / Brilliant is well built, and certainly looks the part. Whilst it may not be a true TLR, with some competent range estimation, and a steady hand, you can get some good quality shots.
Voigtlander Brillant Tech Specs:
Lens: Anastigmat 1:6.3 f/7.5
Film Format: 120 (6x6cm)
Shutter: 1/25 to 1/100 sec, Bulb & Timed
Aperture: f/6.3 to f/22
Focusing: Zone Focusing
Year: 1932 - 1937
Country: West Germany
Included Accessories: Carry case
Control.
I’ve never got on overly well with point and shoot cameras. That ease of use is generally coupled with lack of control over the final image, and that is not my style of photography. This is the first point and shoot whose limitations felt unrestrictive.
TLR-ish.
At a glance this looks like a TLR, a twin lens reflex. With TLRs, you look through the viewfinder, and as you focus, you can see the focus change in the viewfinder. That focusing is translated to an entirely separate lens that focuses the light, onto the film. The Brillant is a pseudo TLR. It has two lenses stacked on top of each other, but they are not linked, and you cannot see real time changes to the focal point. This uses a zone focus system, where you estimate the distance, and adjust the lower lens accordingly.
This is obviously a little less precise than a TLR, where you can fine tune your focus, but with a fairly stopped down maximum aperture of f/6.3, and some practice, you can certainly get well focus shots.
Waist Level View Finding.
Most viewfinders require you to hold them up to your eye, and you aim and compose your shot rather intuitively.
Waist level view finders work a little differently. You look down onto the top of the camera, and you see a reflected, and in this case, horizontally mirrored image.
This has some pretty valuable benefits, getting a low angle is a piece of cake. You can put the camera directly onto the floor, and you won’t be fighting to get your head behind the viewfinder to compose your shot.
If street photography is your thing, then a waist level view finder (WLV) is an excellent way to be a little less obvious. The average person on the street might clock your camera, but if it’s at waist height, they are inclined to think you are changing settings, not taking a photograph. This limits the likelihood of uncomfortable interactions, and leaves potential subjects in a more natural state, if they don’t know that they are being photographed/
The price you pay for those benefits, is the mirrored nature of the view. Rotating the camera to the left, shifts the view further right, and vice versa. It feels backwards, because, well, it is!
Brillant or Brilliant?
This camera was sold throughout Europe, and each camera would have its controls marked in the appropriate language, and the name would change a little.
In its native market of Germany, the focusing controls were in German, and the camera was labelled as a Brillant. In the UK, it was labelled in English, and called the Brilliant.
This camera is labelled Brillant, but the controls are in English. I’m not sure what that tells me about the origin of this specific example. Perhaps at some point there were some hybrid models, or maybe in he 90 years since it’s production, it’s had it lens swapped. I couldn’t say, but it’s always nice to have a little mystery with such an old camera. en subject.
Light Touch.
For clear, shake free shots, you want a light shutter release. The less movement you impart into the camera, the clearer the final image will be, so the lighter the shutter release, the better. The Brillant has this in spades, which is excellent, but it doesn’t fill you with confidence.
To take a shot, you push the shutter arm down, and in that downward motion, it arms, and releases the shutter. That movement is so incredibly buttery smooth that it feels very much like there is a fault in the system. You do not feel like you’ve taken a shot.
I know this is a good thing, as that lightness of controls allowed me to take crisp handheld shots at 1/25th, but it is certainly something that would take some getting used too.
I Miss Timed Modes.
Bulb modes, where the shutter stays open for as long as you depress the shutter release, are incredibly common. Excellent for long exposures, doubly so when paired with a cable release.
A timed mode works a little differently. You depress the shutter lever, and the shutter opens. The shutter stays open, until you depress the shutter lever again, and then it closes. It’s essentially bulb mode, but it is a little easier to manage with very long exposures. You do introduce more movement into the camera, as you cycle the shutter release twice, but if it’s locked down on a tripod, and you use a cable release, it’s not much of an issue.
Use the Case
Generally when I am out and about, I have one camera bag for my digital gear, and another which has my film gear. That bag has anywhere between 2 and four cameras in it, plus lenses, cable releases, and anything else this ex scout might ever possibly need.
Due to my packrat mentality, I tend to leave any leather cases at home. With most cameras, that is just fine. They’re snug and safe in the camera bag, and I’m yet to drop a camera, but the Brillant raises a somewhat unusual issue.
Because the shutter release is so incredibly light, and it’s action requires a fairly short downward movement, pulling it out of a snug bag runs the risk of catching the shutter release, and taking a shot of the inside of your bag.
It happened to me before I has loaded film, so I was very careful, but it’s something to bear in mind.
RTFM
Read the manual.
I’m not always the best at taking the time to read manuals, but that is usually not the case with cameras. I love reading the older ones especially, and this 90-year-old example fits the bill. For some reason, I didn’t read this one, which caused me to fall into a basic pitfall.
On the side of the body, there is a built-in film counter. On the underside, covered by the leather case if it is in use, is a window which shows you the rear of the 120 film.
I decided to advance the film based on the window that shows the film, as I felt this was likely to be more accurate.
This was a mistake.
The window shows the number positions for a 6x8cm frame on 120, not the 6x6cm frame the Brillant shoots. This isn’t the end of the world, as it just meant I wasted some film between frames, but I should have trusted that side counter.
The other advantage to that side counter, is that it cannot let errant light onto the film. Some of the older red tinted film counter windows, don’t work amazingly well with panchromatic films black and white films, or colour films.
Some would have worked perfectly well with the older film stocks, which were rather insensitive to red light, but modern film stocks, tend to be red sensitive, leading to light leaks.
If you want to be a little more intelligent than I was, you can find the manual here:
Final Thoughts
This camera came to be as part of a job lot, that I mostly bought unseen. When I took this out of one of the crates, I was overjoyed. Even a low end TLR in good condition would have on it’s own covered the cost of the every other camera in that bundle, but, as previously mentioned, this isn’t a true TLR. I was disappointed, but I needn’t have been. Spend any time with any of the zone focusing cameras, and you pretty quickly learn the ropes of that particular focusing method.
Spend any time with a quality TLR, doubly so in the city, and you start to be a little weary. This isn’t a £500 camera, so you’re much more inclined to actually use it, rather than let it gather dust on a shelf. It’s fairly compact, lightweight, and can produce good results, when used carefully.
This camera is currently for sale, you can find it down below:
