Today I have listed the Zeiss Ikon Nettar folder on Ebay. I have got to the stage where I cannot reasonably buy any more cameras without losing a few and since we have three other folders in the house, all of which have more appealing attributes than this, the Zeiss is leaving. There’s Alice’s Ensign Ranger, which is of somewhat better quality, and my Voigtlander Bessa, which is of much higher quality, and then there is Alice’s Kodak Vest Pocket, which dates from the first world war. You can see why the Nettar was chosen as the sacrifice.
Norwich Cathedral cloisters
It is always painful to part with a camera, even if you believe that you’re unlikely to use it again, and this particular camera got some pleasing results, despite its very old, and incredibly slow, lens. It is still beautifully made and if you are patient with it, this folder is capable of getting good results. This photo of the beautiful cloisters at Norwich Cathedral was taken with it.
I am also fixing up another Voigtlander, this a ‘Brilliant’ TLR, which was the template from which the Lubitel was forged. In fact, the Lubitel 2 is a near identical copy of the Brilliant, but made with an intriguing hotch-potch of cheaper materials and more current technologies. The mirror had lost most of its silvering and some of the screws holding the waist-level finder in place were rusted through. I gave the camera a thorough clean and service yesterday and today I bought a glass cutter and a cheap make-up mirror and I’ll cut a new lens mirror for it and that should make it as good as new, which is no mean feat for a camera that is 80 years old.
