Belfoca BELFOCA Belfoca
Tom's Camera World Collection - TOMANIA
Belfoca BELFOCA Belfoca
Folding Camera - Portable
6x9 Roll Film Camera 1952 Model
Gammelt Tysk Foldekamera
Gammelt Foldekamera med praktisk bæreveske,
denne er i "Imitert brunt krokodelleskinn" Ekte Retro!
Belfoca Folding Camera 6x9 Roll Film Camera
The lens is E. Ludwig Meritar 1:4,5/ 105mm lens.
The shutter is Prontor S
Tom's Camera World Collection - TOMANIA
Wiki ref. + search net.info.
Optik Belca Kamerawerk, Dresden, VEB Kamerawerk Niedersedlitz,Germany (DDR)
This camera was born behind the Iron Curtain about fifty years ago (~1952)
It is fitted with fairly good lens E. Ludwig Meritar (triplet) 1:4,5/105mm.
Neither the shutter is not bad at all, it is Prontor S with a self timer and a flash contact.
Shutter speeds are 1 - 1/250sec.
Ernst Ludwig a German optical company was founded in 1924.
It produced lenses for German camera manufacturers
and it is known of such brand names like Victar and Meritar,
both an entry level three element lenses.
The company was nationalized in 1972 and was later joined as a part to the VEB Pentacon.
View finder is the simplest possible and you may occasionally take exiting double exposures
with this Belfoca before than you learn to wind the next frame immediately after the shutter release. The waist level view finder has to have been optional because it is not very common on these more modern folding cameras.
The Belfoca is more or less a copy of the Zeiss Nettar (515/2) but in spite of rather similar specifications the results are slightly inferior compared to the original.
The background of Belfoca
Again a camera manufacturer with very long history. The story beguns when Max Baldeweg founded a camera factory in 1908. The production was busy until WW II changed all. Max Baldeweg lost his company to the state but he founded a new company under the Balda name in Western Germany.
As usual the models and manufacturing prosesses and machines and even the names were stolen. The East German company continued to produce cameras under the Balda name until 1951, when the name changed to "Optik Belca Werke". 1957 this company formed part of the new "VEB Kamerawerk Niedersedlitz"
