Specifications

Country of origin: Germany

Manufacturer: Voigtländer

In production: 1954-1960

Film: 135 (perforated 35mm) for 24x36mm images

Lens: Color Skopar 50 f/3.5 or 50mm f/2.8 (unit focusing system)

Filters: 32mm push-on or 30mm screw-on

Lenshood: 32mm push on (310/32)

Viewfinder: Optical-viewfinder with framelines

Shutters observed:

Pronto, speeds T-B, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 300

Prontor SVS (typ499), speeds T-B, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 300, 500

Dimensions: 118 × 75 × 70mm  ; weight 605g

Bertram meter is a needle meter that has no sensitivity adjustment according to film speed. The meter needle deflects to indicate an EV zones along it's length, so the correct reading is made at the red tip of the pointer. EV zones are alternating black and white bands, where black zones have numbers and white zones do not. Instead the EV scale is changed via a small knob on the back of the camera top-plate, which rotates a drum. Each EV scale on the drum is assigned a letter ID, and an engraved table on the top-plate must be used to lookup the letter setting for the film speed. This table covers speeds from 6 to 200 ASA (but once again, there may have been range variations?). The table also includes DIN and WES film speeds (Weston Film Speed ratings - found on Weston exposure meters, and were sometimes referred to by film manufactures as third party speeds). The EV reading is then manually transferred to the lens settings. The Bertram meter was fitted to later cameras.

Bewi-Automat meter has no pointer needle but readings based on Exposure Value (EV). There is a dial on the top-plate with an ASA or DIN film speed ring. A button on the back of the camera top-plate activated the meter, and had to be pressed for at least one second before releasing slowly. This caused aperture and shutter speed dials to rotate and align on the meter dial, and show appropriate exposure combinations (EV). The camera has a Prontor SVS shutter with EV Scale, and the meter readings are transferred to the equivalent shutter speed+Aperture settings. Bewi-Automat meter covers a range of EV between 2 and 17 (4 to 16 for ASA 100)

b) The Vito BR has a coupled rangefinder and is quite uncommon. The rangefinder base was short, and only a few were made (~11.000)