The
Plaubel Brooks Veriwide 100, named just "Veriwide 100", is a non-folding
120 film camera, format 6x10,
released in 1959 by Brooks Co, New York, but built by Plaubel & Co,
Frankfurt/Main. As it's name suggests, it's a very wide angle camera,
nearly 100° wide, a body constructed around a 47mm Schneider
Super Angulon, a very reknown lens for 4x5" photography. According to
different sources, it was built either until 1963 or 1965. I haven't
seen serial numbers of 64/65 yet. It's often said that only 2000 were
built. I don't believe this, according to the serial numbers I have
seen, there were several hundreds built in 1959, nearly 1000 in 1960,
1500 in 1961and nearly 2000 in 1963. Which makes it something about
5000. I will watch out for further information. The change between the
bull's-eye level and the ordinary levels seems to happen in the late
production of 1961, but numbers do overlap.
I put this camera on
these folder pages because it's not bigger than some of the bigger
folders and it's unique.
The Plaubel Brooks Veriwide 100
has a simple wire frame finder with a parallax compensation device.
There was an accessory finder available, specially built for the
picture format of this camera by Leitz, on the basis of a Leica 21mm
finder.
Size (mm): 159 x 102 x 75 without finder, 159 x 127 x 75, finder attached Weight: 960 g Lens: Schneider Super Angulon 8/47, closest focus 0,75 m Shutter: Synchro Compur, B, 1 - 1/500, F 8 - 32 Finder: wire frame, special finder available Film advance: automatic
Here
are some photos of the camera. There is a short introduction to the use of it and how it
feels at the bottom of the page.
Camera
front, folded. Finder attached. Top, to the right: film Advance.
Seen
from the back. Eyepiece for the wireframe finder folded.
Seen from the bottom: tripod socket on disc compatible with Rolleifix and Zip-Grip mounts. Shutter cocking lever on lens.
Seen
from above. Body, from left: film advance, film counter, finder
attached in accessory shoe, parallax compensation device, shutter
release button, spirit level. Lens, from front: Step-up ring 40,5 ->
58mm, speed selection ring, self-timer/flash synchro lever and aperture
setting lever, focussing with 2 hyperfocal stops at 20 and 6 feet,
depth-of-the-field scale.
Left side.
. Right side. Camera back opening button
Camera back open.
Film chamber.
From Front. 58mm lens cap attached.
Handling
a Plaubel Brooks Veriwide 100
is easy, it was made for professionals, everything is where it should
be, it has just the basics. It's quite like a 120 film folding camera.
Loading film
is fine. Open the
camera back and put the
film roll into place, the pegs on the bottom retract. Same
procedure for the take-up spool. Insert the film
paper
backing
into the spool and advance it using the advance device until the film
start arrow matches the white marks near the end of the film plane.
Close the camera and wind until the window will
show "1", film wind is automatically stopped.
Cock the shutter lever. Set
aperture and focus distance. Look
through the finder and compose your picture. Press the shutter button.
That's
it. Advance the film to the next
picture, there is a double exposure prevention. After the seventh picture it will advance to "E".
As it's a very wide angle camera with a very sharp lens, focusing is really easy, it has 2 hyperfocal stops at 20 and 6 feet.
Even at F8 there is no distortion, and set to 20 feet, everything
between ∞ and 10 feet (3m) is in focus. Set to 6 feet, at F22,
it's
between ∞ and 3 feet (0,9m). There is a bit of the typical light
fall-off. Framing with the wire frame is quite o.k., the eyepiece can
be shifted via a little lever for parallax correction. The dedicated
finder is better of course, but it's very, very expensive. Other
finders wouldn't do the job really, at least not better than the wire
finder.
The Plaubel Brooks Veriwide 100
is a nice, special purpose camera, easy to use. It fits
into a coat wide pocket without the Leitz finder. Mine is well used,
but didn't have any issues. The lens is still superb, the shutter works
fine, it's quiet and needs no force at all, so no issues about bending.
And no problem with the film advance. For a more than 50 years old
camera, it delivers astonishing results. You can't do smaller for very
wide angle on 120 film. I just love it.
