Veriwide 100

When 3 tenors of photographic equipment worked together, a legend is born. And this camera has been around, read on to find out more!

The viewer is made by Leitz (Leica), the lens by Schneider-Kreuznach; that’s for the German part, and the case is from Brooks-Plaubel; the American part. The camera was made from the mid 50’s till the mid 60’s and abbout 30.000 were produced. On the camera you can see the inscription : New York – Frankfurt a/M, beautiful.

The Veriwide 100, has his name from the angle of view it takes : 100° and is …very very wide. This is the equivalent of a 18.5mm on 35mm film.

But the great thing about the camera is, it’s on medium format. You can shoot 7 images on a 120 film with a huge size of 6×10cm, for every picture.

The camera is very compact for a mediumformat one and weighs a bit more than a kilogram and is easy to carry.

I found this camera in a pile of junk on a Belgian fleamarket. The shutter was broken. After Googling for a while, I found a camera-repairman that could fix it. And there goes the camera with airpost, from Belgium to the USA. After a month impatiently waiting the camera, I had a letter from customs that they made an investigation on the camera and I had to explain from where this camera came, and why I have to send it to the USA for repair. I still doesn’t understand… But the camera was wonderfully repaired and the glass was cleaned fine.

The lens has this softness that characterize early lenses, when you shoot in the sun it vignettes, and the corners are a bit deformed, like you can have on a pinhole.

It has speeds from bulb till 1/500 sec and f 8 till 32. Enough to have a correct exposure on any circumstance.

written by ishoothorizon on 2009-05-27 #gear #review #wide #veriwide-100 #very-wide #mediumformat