I bought this camera just after the Voigtlander month I had a little while ago. I saw it on Facebook marketplace for £100 and thought I would take a look. It involved a 2-hour round trip, but if it was working…Then I thought it would be worth it.

When I had the camera in my hand, I could tell it was rough. It was dirty and I could barely see anything in the viewfinder. The top speeds seemed to work fine, but the 1 and 2-second speeds were sticky. As I didn’t have any experience with the camera, I also didn’t know there was a lever missing that stopped the self-timer from activating. There was nothing I could see that was a big issue, though.

The first thing I did was clean it up. The taking lens and the viewfinder lens screwed off very easily. I think someone had done it before. That feeling became stronger later, and you will see why.

I loaded it with a roll of HP5 and went to the Donkey Sanctuary to test it. I took a few shots at 1/125th and noticed the focusing didn’t match the distance scale. The infinity was way off. As I was already out with the camera, I decided on an experiment. I unscrewed the viewfinder lens to reset the focusing to match infinity. I then rescrewed the viewfinder and kept turning until it was in focus. The viewfinder lens was loose, but focused. I then shot the rest of the film, being careful not to touch the viewfinder lens and knock it back out of alignment.

Here are the results.

You can see exactly when I rescrewed the viewfinder lens. But look at that, it worked. The second shot of the bench is an accidental double exposure, but I like it.

So now I knew the camera worked. It is just out of alignment and needed a service. I sent a few emails off to the regular places. A few said they would not touch a Superb, and others were quoting £300 for a service and mirror/focus screen upgrade. It would be worth it, but it was the end of the school year, and I had decided to resign. I had no spare money for a service. I left the camera on my shelf for a while and thought about it. I could sell some cameras to make it happen, but what if it was as simple as realigning the viewfinder lens?

Researching the camera, I read that many Superbs had a dark viewfinder, which made me feel better about mine. It was dark, but still quite usable. The strap lugs on the side that look like bunny ears let me know it is an early example from 1933. Maybe I could change the mirror myself; I have done it before with other TLRs. But after reading this review, I decided not to. You have to take the whole top section off to access it. Mike’s review mentions his counter didn’t work, but mine did. So I really didn’t want to fiddle with the camera more than necessary. I decided to try and refocus the viewing lens myself and stick at that until I had more spare cash.

I took the lens off to give it a another look. It could unscrew into two sections.

When I screwed it back on, the infinity was still way off…When I could move the focusing lever to hit that mark on the scale. For some reason, the dial would not hit the infinity mark if I screwed the VF lens in all the way. I unscrewed it a bit, and the infinity mark got closer. I unscrewed it until the infinity mark could be reached, but the camera was still not in focus. There was something wrong with the VF lens.

I took it apart again and had another look. What if I put a washer between the two sections? What if there was one there in the first place, and at some point in its life and it fell out? I had nothing to lose, though I didn’t have an appropriate washer.

To trial my idea, I used some wool to make a removable washer to see if it would make any difference.

Certainly not perfect, but I could check the focusing issue and wouldn’t you believe it…It worked!! Well, almost. The lens wasn’t fully screwed in when it hit infinity, but it was closer. I decided to make a better, but also removable washer with a spare bit of leather, then use some plumbers’ tape to make sure the lens wouldn’t move once I had it focused at infinity.

Well, all there was to do now was test it, especially at closer distances. I loaded a roll of Kentmere 400 and wandered my local area. I wanted to use the camera as I normally would, not being overly protective of the VF lens repair. Hopefully it would stay focused for the whole roll.

Yatta!!! Would you look at that! I think those results are acceptable. The double exposure was down to me panicking. The missing ‘thing’ that stops the cocking lever from going too far and activating the self-timer meant that I was activating it by mistake. The self-timer is activated by moving slightly past the regular cocking position, so it is easy to do without that ‘thing’ to stop it. As I became more familiar, I stopped doing it. But on that shot, the dog had to wait for 10 seconds for the camera to fire, and I was worried it wouldn’t do so. It was a good boy and did, I just forgot to wind on after.

Next, I took the camera on a proper outing, no more tests. I wanted to used it as I would a regular camera. I loaded it with a roll of HP5 and went to Tatton Park on a very wet and cloudy day. Once the rain had dissipated somewhat, I got to shooting. Most of the shots were at 1/100th and wide open at f3.5 due to the weather.

Double YATTA!!!

The results remind me of the Old Standard I have; both cameras are from the same era. Did you notice that the shots are straight? I usually have a tilt or two. This camera has a bubble level right in the viewfinder, and I made good use of that. Another feature I liked was the reversed script for the speeds. There was a little mirror, pointing up, making the script the right way round. That meant when you were looking down into the viewfinder, you could also see the speed and the aperture on a dial, without moving the camera.

I got a case with the camera, but it is also in a bit of a state. I might look into sewing and recovering the inside at some point. But for now, I am just going to marvel in the fact that I have a working Superb. I polished the black skin and used a permanent marker to go over a bit of the distance scale so I could read it more easily.

It’s not perfect, it is Superb and it is mine.

Other useful links:
https://photothinking.com/2024-03-25-voigtlander-superb-just-superb/
https://www.35mmc.com/15/12/2020/voigtlander-superb-my-new-favorite-tlr-by-dan-cuny/
https://mikeeckman.com/2018/11/voigtlander-superb-1933/