C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Voigtländer Vito BL (1956) is a direct evolution of the Vito B (1954), adding a built-in selenium exposure meter to the camera body. Where the Vito B was a pure scale-focus viewfinder compact, the BL adds a selenium cell on the front face and an EV-scale match-needle display in the viewfinder. The meter is entirely battery-free: selenium cells generate their own small electrical current when exposed to light, requiring no external power source. This makes the BL fully operational even after more than 60 years, provided the selenium cell has not degraded.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →C41
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
View profile →C41
Kodak UltraMax 400 is a versatile consumer-grade ISO 400 daylight-balanced color negative film with T-grain emulsion, delivering warm Kodak colors, fine-for-speed grain (PGI 46), and wide exposure latitude. Currently in production and available globally as a single-roll and multi-pack.
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Before you buy used
About this camera
The Vito B with a built-in selenium meter — a neat West German compact that adds exposure guidance without requiring a battery.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Lens | Color-Skopar 50mm f/3.5, 4 elements / 3 groups |
| Years | 1956–1960 |
| Shutter | Prontor SVS, 1s – 1/300s + B |
| Flash sync | 1/300s X-sync |
| Meter | Selenium, battery-free, EV 4–18 |
| Focus | Scale (distance ring) |
| Viewfinder | Optical bright-frame with meter needle |
| Weight | ~400 g |
Voigtländer introduced the Vito B in 1954 as a compact, affordable 35mm camera competing with the Zeiss Ikon Contessa and Kodak Retina series. The Vito B established the body style — a sturdy aluminium and bakelite clamshell with a non-folding (rigid) lens mount — and sold well across Western Europe and export markets.
The BL variant added the Bewi selenium meter (a proprietary Voigtländer accessory meter built into the body). The coupling was semi-automatic: the meter needle indicated the correct EV value, which the photographer then set manually on the combined aperture/shutter-speed scale. This "EV-coupling" approach — setting a single EV value that was mechanically transferred across the aperture/speed combination — was common to German cameras of the era.
The BL was replaced by the Vito BRA (1960), which added a further-refined meter and an updated lens coating. The BL remains the most collectible of the mid-Vito-B variants for its clean integration of the meter and the quality of its Color-Skopar lens.
The Vito BL represents the elegant German approach to adding metering to a compact camera: rather than tacking on a clip-on selenium meter as an accessory, Voigtländer integrated it into the body with a clean viewfinder readout. The battery-free operation is its enduring advantage — a well-preserved BL with an unfogged selenium cell meters accurately today, with no batteries to source or replace.
For users of vintage 35mm cameras on a budget, the BL offers Voigtländer optical quality (the Color-Skopar is a sharp, pleasant lens), solid German construction, and completely self-contained operation. It is a more capable daily carrier than many cameras of its era and price.
Lens fixed (Color-Skopar 50/3.5). Accessories: Voigtländer close-up supplementary lenses (clip-on front element), PC flash sync cable (X for electronic, M for bulb flash), filter adapter for 32mm front thread. No interchangeable-lens capability.
C41
Kodak ColorPlus 200 is an affordable, consumer-oriented daylight-balanced color negative film at ISO 200. Known for warm, slightly muted color rendition, fine grain, and wide exposure latitude, it is currently in production and widely available in Asia and select global markets.
View profile →BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Voigtländer Vito BL
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