Vöigtlander Bessa-L chrome with Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 lens and finder.

The model Bessa-L, introduced in 1999.

This was a finder less body with a Leica screw mount. It was introduced with a range of Voigtländer 39 mm screw lenses that were quite inexpensive and said to be of excellent quality. You could of course mount all the wide variety of 39mm screw lenses by manufacturers as diverse as Leica, Canon, Nikon and even cheaper but often excellent Soviet lenses.

The Bessa-L was mostly intended to be used with ultra-wide angle lenses, with which the absence of a focusing device is not a problem. Most notably Voigtländer introduced a 15 mm and a 12 mm lens, the latter being the widest rectilinear full-frame lens ever marketed up to then.

The Bessa-L has TTL metering with LED readout on the back edge of the top plate with an ASA range of 25–1600 and an EV range 1 to 19 at ASA 100. The readout consists of two red arrows pointing to a green light in between that enables use of the camera as, effectively, a shutter priority, aperture priority, or totally manual camera.

Camera  Bessa-L

Maker : Cosina Japan.

Type: 35mm film camera with focal plane shutter and TTL metering.

Film format : 35mm film  24x36mm

Lens mount : L-mount . (leica screw)

Shutter: Vertically moving metal focal plane shutter. 1s to 1/2000sec

Self-timer:  Mechanical self-timer with 10secs operating time.

Metering system : Center-weighted average metering ; activated by pressing shutter button.

Exposure coupling range: EV4-EV19 (ISO 100;f/4 at 1sec-F16at 1/2000sec

Flash terminal: X synchro contact. Synchronized at 1/125sec or lower speed.

Film advance: By single lever action with 135˚ throw and 30˚ stand off.

Film Rewind: By film rewind button and rewind crank.

Frame counter : Additive type with auto reset by opening the backdoor.

Film speed range: ISO 25—ISO 1600 by 1/3 steps.

Power source: 2 alkaline batteries LR44 or silver batteries SR44

Dimensions and weight: 135x79x34mm

Weight : 320 grams.

Voigtlander Super Wide-Heliar  15mm F4.5 lens.

Film Format : 35mm .

Angle of field: 110˚ Diagonal. 100˚ Horizontal, 77˚ Vertical.

Lens construction : 8 elements in 6 groups , 1 aspherical element Multi coated.

Diaphragm : 10 straight blades.

Smallest diaphragm : F22.

Largest diaphragm : F4.5.

Stop down : half clicks.

Filter thread: none.

Closest focusing distance  : 0,3 m

Lens hood:  Built-in

Finder

Type : Image appears as a rectangle inside black. No lines.

Magnification: 0,38x

Optics : 4 elements in 4 groups.

Diopter : -1.0

Weight : 32 grams.