For a minute there, I considered whether this Vitessa 500 L should be in the Voigtländer section or the Zeiss Ikon section. But really there is not much Voigtländer about it. Made in the days where Zeiss Ikon had taken over Voigtländer, but still used the Voigtländer name, it is in all aspects, except for the Color-Lanthar lens made by Voigtländer, a Zeiss Ikon camera.  The 500 series included a variety of models, and I have chosen this "no frills" 500 L to represent these models in my collection. So what do we really have got here ?. Well, it's a compact 35mm viewfinder without any rangefinder. It's made partly of plastic and partly of metal. The front and the back are of metal plate and the parts inbetween are of plastic. It is fitted with a coupled selenium lightmeter that offers match needle metering reflected into the viewfinder which has got clear brightlines. Allthought having no slower shuttertimes than "B" and 1/15 sec, the Prontor 500 LK reaches 1/500 sec, and is released by the square plastic release button next to the hot-shoe on the camera top. Rewind crank, rapid advance lever and the tripod socket are placed on the camera bottom. On the camera back you'll find a frame with two small windows; one that indicates whether the film has been advanced or not, and the framecounter that is automatically reset by opening the back cover.

So what about the Vitessa 500 L ?. Well, it's absolutely not a high-end camera, and not even a medium-level camera. The old Voigtländer guys must have been appauled by the (mis)use of the Vitessa name. But it is in fact a nice little snapshot camera that you can bring places without caring too much about it. The controls are easy, the viewfinder very useable and if you're used to scale-focusing there is no reason why you shouldn't have some fun with this camera, which in its own way are rather stylish. I would prefer a Vito or a Vitomatic anytime, but why turn your back on a "lets go to the beach" camera that can be found for next to nothing on f.e. eBay ?.

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