Agfa Isolette III
A while ago, I bought a job lot of 5 mostly undescribed cameras --in between them were three folding cameras only shown closed and in blurry photos. I had a good feeling about them. Yay mystery! When they arrived, each had something wrong with it. In fact, what turned out to be an Agfa Isolette III had everything wrong with it: sticky focus, rangefinder frozen solid (someone tried at it with a screwdriver and only succeeded in leaving a mark on the top housing), bellows like a sieve (common with plastic bellows covering on Agfas of this era) and erratic shutter.
Repairs and fixes
I fixed it all, if not properly, then at least to my liking and that honestly makes me enjoy this camera all the more. Turns out a good bit of lighter fluid moved what a screwdriver couldn't and bookbinding tape worked perfectly to make the bellows light tight. Unscrewing the back element let me get into the shutter and again, cleaning it with lighter fluid did what it was supposed to do. Luckily the only adjustment to the rangefinder I had to make was the vertical, and that was an easy enough job.
I'm very new to fixing cameras so I was both excited and anxious to see how I did. After inspecting the negatives, I'm happy to say that after all my tinkering, the camera works just the way it should. Makes me just a little bit proud and more confident to try cleaning and fixing other cameras that I have.
The experience
The Isolette III is very pleasant to use. It's not too large and not too heavy, and compared to, say, Pentacon Six, another 6x6, it's really a baby. Gotta love that about folding cameras. Once I got the rangefinder unstuck, it is an absolute breeze to use. Falls right under the finger and runs smoothly. It's nicely clear and bright, and accurate, more so than I expected --I didn't trust it fully and where I didn't, I was in the wrong.
I used an external lightmeter on my phone with it, and sometimes just guessed exposure. It would be ideal if this camera had a built in lightmeter of course, but the rangefinder feature is cool enough.
The Apotar 4.5/85 is a perfectly okay lens. It's sharper stopped down, of course. Mine seems to have a bit of haze which makes some edges less than ideally crisp but I'm not worried about that. In fact, scroll down to see a crop of the photo with raindrops on twigs --check out that halo-y bokeh! So cute. I think that's exactly due to said haze. Otherwise it's sharp enough for my use, which is mostly viewing the photos on my computer screen.
Bottom line
It's slow-ish shooting with the Isolette III. The uncoupled rangefinder makes you slow down while you transfer the reading to the lens. Using an external lightmeter doubles the time you take to make a shot. However, for some reason it doesn't feel tedious at all and is quite casual instead. The camera is relatively small and straight forward to use. Folded, it fits in your everyday bag. It's a friendly shooter for sure, and I would recommend trying it out if you get the chance and the price is good. I don't know if I would have bought it if it weren't for the mystery bundle but I'm glad I got it in my hands.
Further reading
Agfa Isolette on camera wiki
Manual from Butkus
I shot these photos on Rollei Retro 400 S, a film that has its highlights... when there are actual highlights to be seen. Bleak snowless winter in Poland is just that on this stock: bleak.
Comments
Post a Comment