After a good long spell away from photography in general (well, mostly away), the inevitable return was accompanied by the equally inevitable purchase of an old, cheap camera in unknown condition. I give you the latest addition to the pile:
It's the elusive Vito IIa, one of the last folding cameras ever made (though not the last as is sometimes alleged - I also have a Certo Super Dollina II that is considerably newer); this one dates to 1956. I've been looking - not that hard, but looking nonetheless - for one of these ever since the double exposure prevention/film counter mechanism in my original Vito (or Vito I) gave up the ghost, rendering it fairly useless. I loved that little camera; I did not love the number of times it jammed up on me.
The rounded body is much like that of a Barnack Leica, and folded up they fit perfectly into jacket pockets, making them excellent carry or travel cameras. I wanted the IIa because it was the last of the line and has a lever-wind rather than a knob, although this is somewhat less useful in practice than one might think, as you still have to manually cock the shutter after winding. Fortunately, mechanism is considerably more robust and works perfectly. Happily, though everything I read suggested that the Prontor SVS was of the generation with the dreaded exposure interlock, this one doesn't have it, so I don't have to go to the trouble of disconnecting it.
The shutter was gummed up, everything else was dirty and stiff, and there was a pinhole in the bellows, but all that's been taken care of now. I will load some film into it and get it out for testing soon. I hope the lens is as good as the old uncoated version I had in the Vito I.
