Balda Baldinette

A 35mm folding camera from 1951

After my recent posts on the mystery camera which turned out to be a Balda and the post on the East German Balda Beltica, it got me thinking that I remembered that my late father had a Balda, so I managed to find it and dig it out. It turned out to be a Balda Baldinette and it is the subject of this latest post.

The first thing I saw was this fantastic case, quality brown leather with quite stylish metal trimming / reinforcement, which looks to be nickel plate over brass, which will be the reason it has aged so well. It is hard to believe that this case and its camera are seventy four years old. The leather has not cracked split or dried out, the plating is still shiny!

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So lets see what we have inside

The camera is a 35mm folding camera with a Baltar 1:2.9/ 5cm lens, marked Balda Werk Bunde, the shutter is a Prontor-S, speeded with bulb, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 300. So a nice shutter with plenty of speeds. The apertures are marked 2.9, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16. The little camera weighs in at 455g. So it is quite heavy for a small camera at about 1lb in old money! Or in more practical terms, it's like carrying a jar of jam in your pocket.

The Bünde bit we see on the lens is the German town where the Balda factory set up after the second world war, the Soviets took over the original Balda factory near Dresden, eventually producing the Beltica version of the Balda, forcing its owners to flee to the West. So any Balda with Bünde on the camera, case or lens will be from about 1950 onwards, i.e post war. West German, not East German.

Lets have a look at the features of the Baldinette. The large wheel on the top of the camera pictured above winds on the film, the little knob just below it is called the film arresting button. This button seems to be a shutter lock and a film transport control, but as yet I have not worked out exactly how it operates! On the bottom is a tripod bush. Some reports say that owners instruction books for the owner's manuals of the Baldinette warn "Do not press the body shutter release unless the shutter is cocked. If you do so, the mechanism will be disturbed"This sounds quite worrying, I think my example has been ''disturbed'' as sometimes the shutter fires, sometimes not. So that will need investigation before I put a film through it. If anyone knows more please let me know.

On the top plate is the re-wind knob with its directional arrow, the shutter release, two mysterious round holes, the viewfinder hump, a cold shoe, and the film counter.

The focus is by moving the front of the lens and by guesstimate, so a separate range finder fitted to the accessory shoe would be of use here, I struggle with guessing distances! Just out of interest, when I got the camera out of storage earlier today the focus was solid, it would not move at all, I put one drop of lighter fluid onto it and let it soak in, then later another drop, and gradually the focus mechanism freed off. You have to be very careful here just an odd drop at a time then be patient, you don't want to get the fluid onto the shutter or the lens, so be very careful if trying this at home.

Inside the camera back. The mysterious 'film arresting button' can be seen clearly here. I think I need a scrap film and load it in to see if I can work out what actually goes on here, I think the button and the transport sprockets and possibly the shutter release may be linked here, so I need to work it out !

Well, I'm beginning to get a little bit nearer with things, I have been cleaning the Baldi among taking the photgraphs and have just cleaned these two circles next to the shutter release with a cotton bud and some cleaning fluid and under the dirt in the smaller of the two circles is a red dot, which must be some sort of shutter warning. The bigger one looks like a cable release? The red dot dissapears when the film arresting button is pressed, I'm guessing then the shutter can be fired. Tried it, but it does not fire every time ! Maybe my shutter is ''disturbed!'' I think I will be disturbed by the time I work this one out!

On the other side of the top plate can be seen the film counter. See image below.

The back of the camera showing the depth of focus chart.

The Baldinette writing embossed here in the leatherette is written across on an angle, however I have seen Baldinettes with the writing done in a level horizontal plane. Not sure when or why this was altered.

You can just see a red dot here by the aperture 5.6, there is another red dot on the focus scale between 7' and 10'. I'm guessing this must be a kind of snap shot mode? Not sure!

The round pressing seen in many Baldas of this period.

Well there she is, the 1951 Balda Baldinette. Once again more questions than answers, but I will update the post as and when I find more out!

I like this camera, when I finally sort it out I want to try a film through it, see what it can do. But why make things so complicated ? Maybe that is why Balda never took the Kodak Retinas crown in the 1950's 35mm folding camera sales battle?

If you know the answers to any of the questions please drop me a line, even if it is just an idea or a guess.

I hope you enjoyed this little post.

Take care,

Phil