Voigtländer Bessa R

Voigtländer Bessa R

If the Leica IIIg was the beautiful, romantic end of the screw-mount era, the Voigtländer Bessa R was its unexpected, high-tech resurrection over 40 years later. In the year 2000, Cosina released this camera to act as a modern bridge for all those beautiful, classic Barnack lenses from the 1930s and 50s.

The crown jewel of the Bessa R is its viewfinder. It offers a 0.68x magnification and is, quite frankly, astonishingly bright—often compared favorably against even the most expensive Leica M bodies of the time. Using a dedicated switch on the top plate, you can manually select brilliantly illuminated framelines for 35/90mm, 50mm, and 75mm lenses. Best of all, they are parallax-corrected, meaning they move as you focus closer to keep your framing accurate.

Underneath the polycarbonate outer shell sits a robust, die-cast aluminum chassis housing a mechanical, vertical-travel metal focal-plane shutter. Because it is entirely mechanical, you can shoot at all speeds—from 1 second all the way up to a blistering 1/2000s—without a battery. The camera only requires two tiny LR44 batteries to power its excellent center-weighted TTL light meter, which guides your exposure via a delightfully simple, 3-LED display (an arrow for under, a dot for correct, and an arrow for over) right inside the viewfinder.

While the plastic outer shell means it doesn't quite have that heavy, "brassy" feel of a classic Leica, it makes the camera incredibly lightweight and perfect for travel and street photography.

History

The Bessa R is the camera that kicked off the modern third-party rangefinder renaissance.

The Cosina Revival (1999 - 2000) In the late 1990s, Cosina's CEO, Hirofumi Kobayashi, licensed the historic German "Voigtländer" brand name. He started by releasing the Bessa-L in 1999 (a scale-focus camera with no viewfinder) to test the waters. It was a massive hit, prompting Cosina to release the fully coupled Bessa R in 2000. It was launched alongside a stellar lineup of modern, multi-coated Voigtländer LTM lenses (like the 35mm f/1.7 Ultron and 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar).

The M-Mount Transition The Bessa R proved that there was a massive hunger for affordable, modern rangefinders. It was so successful that in 2002, Cosina upgraded the chassis to a heavier magnesium alloy, swapped the LTM screw-mount for the Leica M-mount, and released the Bessa R2 (which we analyzed at the very beginning of our journey!).

Legacy Today, the original Bessa R is a cult classic. Because it utilizes the older LTM mount and has a plastic outer shell, it is usually much more affordable on the used market than its M-mount successors (the R2, R3, and R4). It remains the absolute smartest purchase for anyone wanting to shoot 1930s Leica glass on a camera with a modern 21st-century light meter [1].