I have had this post drafted for almost two years (!!!) and only now decided to finish it. I found this Zeiss Ikon Nattar camera at a bröcki (aka a thrift store in Swiss) in Bern. It seemed in good condition. No tears in the accordion and the back fitted snugly. So I took it for a spin!

Zeiss Ikon Nettar

The Zeiss Ikon Nettar is a medium format manual focus camera with an accordion lens which folds out of the camera body for 120 roll film. The first Nattar was released in 1934 by the German company Zeiss Ikon (camera-wiki). I think the one I got is the Nettar II 517/16 which was first released in 1951 and produced until 1957 (camera-wiki).

I love the look and feel of this camera. It’s simple design makes it easy to operate, you turn the dial on the lens to set the aperture and the focus which is measured in meters. Also on the lens is setting the shutter which is then released with the button on top of the camera. After taking a photo you advance the roll by turning the dial, also on top of the camera. All very easy!

The Nattar I have doesn’t have double exposure prevention and I have not been able to get myself into enough of a habit to remember whether or not I have advanced my roll… and so after a few shots I realised it was hopeless, so I decided to intentionally play with double exposures.

Below, my experiments and below that the two photos where I did remember whether or not I had advanced the roll! You can see that in the three portraits there was some light leaking in and some of the film wrapper made it into the photos. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which film I used. I suspect it was Kodak…

bonus: remembering.