Voigtlander dynamatic II, odd(?) design choice

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Vinc1973 Forum Member • Posts: 76
Voigtlander dynamatic II, odd(?) design choice
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Hello.

I've recently received a Dynamatic II. It's an interesting camera, in that it offers manual or automatic shutter-priority exposure even without requiring a battery. It does so thanks to a clever design that uses the exposimeter needle to limit the travel of the aperture. I've found that implementation really brilliant!

Oddly though, the exposimeter indicates the correct aperture only when the camera is set to Auto. In manual mode the exposimeter is disabled.

Initially, I thought that this was a malfunction and went on disassembling the camera, but this website indicates that it's the normal behaviour: http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/cameras/Voigtlander_Dynamatic2.html

While trying to fix something that was not broken, I realised that this was a deliberate choice, rather than a technical limitation: when set to manual mode, the selenium cell gets short-circuited by a contact in the lens, thereby disabling the exposimeter. Disconnecting a wire (red, indicated by the green arrow) from inside the lens assembly, allows to bypass this limitation and the camera exposimeter seems to work both in manual and in auto modes.

But, why would the manufacturer introduce such a "feature"? What could the reason be for adding a wire and a contact just to limit the functionality of the camera?

Any ideas?

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