Ektra! Read all about it!

Brian, the Prominent isn't over-engineered, just designed from apparently a totally clean slate (and in a parallel universe!). I'd like to check out the II, which has a much bigger, though flare-prone, finder. The Prominent is just so darn well made that it's easy to overlook its quirks -- but it does make you wonder what Voigtlander could have done with a focal plane shutter design.
 
I'm thinking about the double shutter. I'll drop of the first roll tomorrow to see if it is really required. The one picked up from Ebay is the Prominent "1.5" with much larger eyepiece, framelines for the 50 and 100, and lever advance. I do not know how many were made before the Prominent II came out. The one from St Vinnies is the classic Prominent I with knob advance and smaller finder/eyepiece; has the accessory shoe. I'll have to make a lot of Coffee this weekend.
 
I would like to see the owners manual explaining all the knobs, dials, levers and crap on that camera!
 
The Kodak Ektra has lots of dials and doodads, but it was not a successful camera. According to Gandy, only about 2,500 were made. He also describes it as having perhaps the worst shutter ever put into a high quality rangefinder. The seller of this particular Ektra even admits he has removed the shutter curtain material from the camera. I imagine the cost of getting this Ektra into working condition would be exhorbitant, if not impossible. So this appears to be a shelf queen for collectors only.
 
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