Hey camera connoisseurs and vintage enthusiasts! Today, I dive into the world of a true photographic icon: the Zeiss Ikon Nettar. This little folding beauty isn’t just a relic of the past, it’s a gateway to a simpler, more deliberate approach to photography.
Back in the 1930s, Zeiss Ikon had a vision: make photography accessible. Enter the Nettar, a folding masterpiece engineered for the everyday snapshotter. No fancy rangefinders, no light meters, just clean lines, a satisfying click, and the legendary Novar lens. These cameras weren’t about technical acrobatics, they were about capturing life’s moments with intention and a touch of nostalgia.
I took this beauty into the woods recently with a challenge! I shot a roll of Kodak TMAX 100 and was left with speeds slower than are on the camera itself and after metering the low lit woodland all I could do was to put the camera into Bulb Mode and guesstimate and count my exposure times. Most of which were around 1/15th of a second!
I made a vlog on the experience and here is the video, and also below are the negatives and scanned images as well as a couple of prints I made in the darkroom!
As expected my negatives were over exposed, but not ruined! This film has bags of latitude and I knew I would easily be able to get a print from them in the darkroom. They were developed in 510 Pyro.
8×8 Print on Kentmere VC Select Paper. Turned out nice after a bit of split grading.
And here are the scanned images.
