Voigtländer Bessa R4A / Bessa R4M

Voigtlander Bessa R4A / Bessa R4M

The Voigtlander Bessa R4A and Bessa R4M are the ultimate tools for wide-angle rangefinder photographers. Introduced to the market in 2007, these cameras solved a decades-old problem in the M-mount ecosystem. Traditionally, if a photographer wanted to shoot with a lens wider than 28mm (like a 21mm or 25mm) on a Leica or Zeiss body, they had to mount an external viewfinder on top of the camera to compose the shot, while still using the camera's internal rangefinder to focus.

Cosina engineered the R4 series with a specially designed, ultra-wide 0.52x magnification viewfinder. This allowed them to project parallax-corrected framelines for 21mm, 25mm, 28mm, 35mm, and 50mm directly into the built-in viewfinder. A photographer could now focus and compose an ultra-wide shot without ever taking their eye off the camera.

Because of the extreme 0.52x demagnification, 50mm framelines appear very small in the center of the window (similar to how 90mm framelines look on a standard Leica). Therefore, the camera is rarely used for telephoto work, but it reigns supreme for architecture, landscape, and close-quarters street photography.

Like the R2 and R3 series before them, Cosina offered the R4 in two shutter variants:

• The Bessa R4A (Auto) utilizes an electronic shutter to offer Aperture Priority auto-exposure, making it incredibly fast for run-and-gun street photography, though it requires batteries to fire.
• The Bessa R4M (Mechanical) utilizes a fully mechanical shutter. It operates completely battery-free at all speeds (from 1s to 1/2000s), using the battery solely to power the internal TTL light meter.

History

The R4 series was the final major innovation in Cosina’s mechanical Bessa lineup, closing out a golden era of third-party M-mount development.

The Wide-Angle Solution (2006 - 2007) First announced at Photokina in late 2006 and released in 2007, the R4 series was launched to perfectly complement Voigtlander's expanding lineup of excellent, affordable wide-angle VM lenses (such as the Color-Skopar 21mm f/4 and Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f/4). Before the R4, nobody believed a 21mm viewfinder could be integrated into a standard rangefinder body without severe distortion or blockage. Cosina proved the industry wrong [1].

Legacy Production of the R4A and R4M officially ceased around 2013-2015, alongside the rest of the Bessa line. Today, the R4 remains entirely unrivaled. Not even Leica has produced an M-camera with built-in 21mm framelines. Because there is quite literally no alternative camera that does what the R4 does, it commands premium prices on the used market and is highly coveted by wide-angle purists [2].