60 Year Old Camera Works Like a Charm - Agfa Isolette I

It's always a crap shoot when it comes to buying vintage cameras online. Even if the listing claims that everything is in working order, there's about a 20% chance that something on the camera is not, in fact, working. That's been my experience at least.

When I first started collecting vintage cameras, I would take receipt of the camera, shoot a roll of film, wait for the contact sheet to come back from the lab and then assess whether or not the camera was in need of repair. Quite a few of my vintage cameras arrived with a bad shutter curtain, still others had a non-working light meter or bad rangefinder etc.

So what I finally decided to do was to just go ahead and take all my newly acquired vintage cameras to my repair guy for a good CLA (clean, lubricate and adjust) regardless of whether they needed it or not. This provided me with piece of mind.

One camera, however, that I bought a long time ago and never got around to shooting with until just a couple weeks ago, was this fabulous Agfa Isolette from the 1950's. It's a medium format, fold out camera with bellows, that shoots big 6x6 negatives. It's rudimentary in it's features and I was rather worried about whether or not it was actually in working order. One of the interesting things about the camera, and what makes it a challenge to shoot with, is that there is no way to focus the camera other than simply measuring the distance between yourself and the subject, then setting the focus ring to that distance. There's no visual means of verifying the focus. It's a leap of faith.

I did, however, add a vintage range finder that mounts to the top of the camera on the flash mount. But it's also extremely rudimentary and only serves to verify your distance from the subject, it does not in any way verify the focus. The ONLY way to know if your picture is in focus is to get the pictures developed and see for yourself.

I finally loaded a roll of 120 Fuji Across ISO 100 film into the Agfa Isolette last week and kept it in my bag until I went through the roll. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of my pictures were not only exposed correctly but were also in focus! Some very nice results from a 60 plus year old camera!

Mamiya 7 - The Best Camera Ever Made?

Of all the cameras in my modest collection, the Mamiya 7 is perhaps the best of the lot. In fact, many consider it the best camera ever made. The Mamiya 7 is a medium format, range finder, film camera that captures 6x7 images, in today's terms it would probably be equal to a 40-50 megapixel digital image in terms of resolution. In fact, according to the test shots in this article, the Mamiya 7 captures images comparable in resolution to an 80 megapixel Phase One digital camera! In additional, Ken Rockwell, a noted camera reviewer, calls the Mamiya 7 "the world's best camera."

This camera is priced anywhere between $1200 and $1900 roughly, depending on the overall condition of the camera body and lens. I got lucky and found an eBay listing for $770. The only blemish being a small chip on the bottom of the body which I was able to super glue and now you can hardly tell there was ever a blemish at all.

One of the most interesting things about this camera is the almost non-existent sound of the shutter. I thought there was something wrong with the camera when I shot my first roll of film because it just makes a very faint "click" sound. I was thought to myself, "Is that the shutter?" Yes, it was the shutter, and the lack of sound takes a little getting used to.

At the moment I only have one lens which is an 80mm and as you can see from the samples below, it is extremely sharp and clean. I would like to add a 65mm (35mm equivalent focal length = 32mm) or 50mm (35mm equivalent focal length = 24mm) to use for landscapes. The 65mm is about $200 cheaper than the 50mm so I will probably opt for the former.

Most other 6x7 medium format film cameras are big, bulky and heavy (i.e. Pentax 67, Mamiya RB67) but this Mamiya 7 is light and easy to carry and shoot hand held. 

I first became interested in the Mamiya 7 after watching a short documentary about the recently deceased Mary Ellen Mark, one of the greatest photographers of our time. I became curious about the camera I saw her using. After a little research, I discovered that she was shooting with a Mamiya 7II, but that model was a little out of my price range, so I opted for the earlier model, which ended up being the Mamiya 7. I don't presume to compare myself to someone of Mary Ellen's stature, but I certainly aspire to be!

Film photography is alive and well, and shooting on film helps me improve my skills overall, it certainly helps to have cameras such as the Mamiya 7. It's an absolute pleasure to shoot with it.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/16 (Post War)

Today the mailman delivered unto me the newest member of my vintage camera collection, a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/16 medium format film camera. The Zeiss Ikon Nettar was originally released in 1937, however, the model I have is a post-war model. probably manufactured around 1947.

It shoots 6x6cm exposures on 120 medium format film (8 exposures per roll) and features a 75mm f/4.5 lens.

It is a strut folding camera, the lens pops out of the camera with the push of a button and can be folded back in. It features a rudimentary view finder and the camera can only be focused by judging your distance from your subject and adjusting the focus ring accordingly. There is no way to visually confirm the focus.

It's in amazingly good shape given it's age. In fact, it looks like it's never been used!

Cool beans! Can't wait to try it out. Stay tuned for the images.