Chris's camera pages

Belca Beltica I

Belca Beltica folding 35mm camera

The Belca Beltica is a compact 35mm folding viewfinder camera, quite similar to the earlier Retina models or a Welta Welti in appearance.

This camera was made in Dresden in the factory formerly producing Balda cameras. The Beltica is clearly the continuation of the Balda Baldina pre-war model line.

This model was manufactured around 1951, and this particular example is fitted with a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f/3.5 5cm lens in a flash-synched Cludor shutter with speeds from 1 to 1/200th second, & B.

The Beltica has a parallax adjustment on the viewfinder.

Belca Beltica folding 35mm camera

Meanwhile in the West, Balda was manufacturing cameras like the Baldinette, clearly a closely related camera.

Beltica instruction manual on Mike Butkus' excellent website.

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