Rittreck IIa: one camera, four formats
This multi-format SLR has an array of interchangeable options and is a little out of the ordinary, as John Wade explains
John Wade tells us about this multi-format SLR
When it was launched in 1956, the Rittreck IIa was advertised as ‘the world’s most versatile single lens reflex (SLR)’. Although the Trade Descriptions Act, which prevented advertisers from publishing misleading information, didn’t come into force until 1968, it would be hard to disagree with that claim. Compare its specification to any other SLR of the time.
The Rittreck was made by the Japanese Musashino Koki Company, and is one of the very few 6x9cm SLRs to come out of Japan. It offers interchangeable lenses, interchangeable film backs, a choice of using roll film or cut film, close- up accessories, waist- and eye-level viewfinders and the ability to shoot four different formats on the same roll of film.
The basic shape is pretty conventional – a box with a lens on the front that moves back and forth on bellows, a film holder on the rear and a focusing screen under a hood on the top. With a standard lens fitted, film back in place and focusing hood erect, it measures 23x16x12cm and weighs 2.3kg. It’s big, heavy and awkward to use which, for some, makes it more of a collector’s item than a usable camera. But if you’re up for a film- user’s challenge, read on…
Film formats
The Rittreck is usually found with a multiformat film holder for 120 rollfilm. It opens like a book to load the film, which is unusually wound onto the take-up spool with the film on the outside and the backing paper on the inside of the roll. A dark slide prevents film fogging when the back is removed from the camera. On the top of the holder three small windows display three film counters.
With the holder in place and the dark slide removed, the camera is ready to take 6x7cm exposures, ten to a roll, as you watch the numbers in the left frame counter window. To take 12 exposures in the 6x6cm format,
a mask is inserted in the film holder in place of the dark slide and the numbers in the right window are used. For 6x4.5cm pictures, a different mask is inserted and the counter in the middle checks off the numbers from one to 15. As the film is advanced, all three counters move, geared to advance by different increments, according to each of the formats. By watching the counters while juggling the masks, it is even possible to shoot all three formats on the same roll of film. A second, larger film back is used to take eight 6x9cm exposures. Also available are 6x9cm cut film holders and a film pack back.
Lenses
The lens mostly found on the camera is a standard 10.5cm f/3.5 Luminant, which stops down to f/22. In its conventional fitting, the lens screws into a board that is recessed into the camera’s lens panel. But if the assembly is removed and the lens unscrewed, the board can be reversed so that the previously recessed part now stands proud of the body. With the lens remounted that much further from the film plane, the closest focusing distance is reduced from 45cm to 33cm. With the camera’s dedicated extension tubes, even closer focusing down to 1:1 is attainable with the standard lens.
The accessory Luminant lenses include a 5cm f/4.5 wideangle, 18cm f/4.5 and 21cm f/4.5 medium telephotos, 30cm f/5.6 telephoto and an enormous 40cm f/5.6 super-tele. Each of these lenses screws into its own lens board, enabling the interchange to be effected quickly and easily, by releasing a couple of catches, rather than having to unscrew one lens before screwing in another.
Using the camera
Opening the hood on the waist-level viewfinder reveals a ground- glass focusing screen. For anyone more used to looking into the screen of a medium-format camera such as a Hasselblad or Bronica, it seems enormous, covering the full 6x9cm format, with lines etched into it for the other three formats. The image is laterally reversed.
Press a catch on the inside front of the hood and a magnifier flips up at 90° for fine focusing. Pulling the magnifier up further allows access to the inside of the front of the hood, where a small metal trapdoor is opened to reveal a square lens that forms the front sight of a sports finder, used at eye level by viewing through another small lens in the back of the hood. Eye-level viewing is also possible by removing the waist-level finder hood completely and replacing it with another, now very rare, eye-level accessory. It would be nice to report that this contained a pentaprism but, in fact, it is little more than a metal box containing an angled mirror.
Handheld exposures are possible when used at waist level. But holding the camera to the eye while manipulating the controls is extremely awkward. For these reasons, the camera is best used on a tripod. The body has a tripod bush in its traditional place on the base and another on the side, so the camera might be mounted sideways for portrait subjects in the 6x9cm and 6x7cm formats, or landscape in the 6x4.5cm format. The problem is that the single mirror viewfinder system then shows the subject upside down on the focusing screen.
The standard lens – though not the accessory lenses – has a preset feature that allows the photographer to set the desired f- stop, while focusing at full aperture, then to twist a ring which stops the lens down to the preset shooting aperture. The shutter is a focal plane type with speeds of 1/201/400sec, set by a dial on one side of the body and tensioned by a knob on the opposite side. Turning this knob also lowers the mirror ready for exposure. The mirror flips up as the exposure is made and does not return until the shutter tensioning knob is turned again. The shutter is fi red by a release at the front of the body, and it is also synchronised for bulb or electronic flash. A typical picture-taking sequence would be: Place the camera on a tripod. Set the shutter speed. Turn the shutter tensioning knob to lower the mirror. Select a shooting aperture. Focus at full aperture. Stop the lens down to its preselected shooting aperture. Remove the dark slide from the film back. Fire the shutter. The manufacturers obviously saw the Rittreck as an all-round system camera, suitable for studio and portrait work, as well as for landscape, sports, medical and scientific photography. A brochure of the time shows a photographer using the Rittreck at waist-level to shoot a tennis match. The same brochure shows a photographer using the camera mounted on a column, equipped with bellows and attached to a microscope – a set-up that, given the dimensions of the camera, might have been a bit precarious.
Despite the drawbacks, for today’s film user who wants to try something a little out of the ordinary, using a Rittreck can be a lot of fun, even though its versatility is sometimes negated by its size and weight.