Analogue Blog: A very British Affair

This is a short account of my own experiences with a early 50s British made camera.

Buying British:

Not sure why I decided my vintage camera collection lacked a British marque, but for some reason it bothered me.  Everything was either German and Japanese and of course generally excellent in both cases.  But what about something with more ‘character’ I thought and something in 120 roll film.

Some web browsing led me to some names and eventually of course ebay.  I missed out on a nicely presented and tested Agilux Agifold.  Some time later another appeared. This time untested, unknown quantity, sold as seen. The case looked in rather good condition, so for £10, I couldn't go far wrong could I?

 

Agilux made military cameras during World War 2, so that ought to be a reasonable pedigree.  The company produced consumer cameras in the fifties, but ceased, returning to military photographic equipment right up to the eighties.  At that point they ceased making cameras and similar, but continue to this day to make a variety of systems for the military as well as hardware for civilian airfields.

The Agifold has an Agilux badged ( I believe they made everything themselves) 75mm f4.5 lens, with a minimum aperture of f22 and shutter speeds from Bulb to 350th.  There is a little movement on the focusing after the last marking which is 3.5ft, so closest focusing is probably a little over 3 feet. The camera has a quite smart brown leather case, though the straps seem to be prone to rotting.  Folded down, these cameras are reasonably compact but still not going to go into most pockets, unless you have a really big coat.

When my Agifold duly arrived, it looked pretty good.  Usual checks of shutter and aperture revealed no obvious problems. The lens looked pretty clean, in fact in surprisingly good condition.  The rangefinder is operated by moving a wheel… this was decidedly stiff. The viewfinder a little murky and the rangefinder alignment barely visible. What was really rather satisfying was pushing the little button on the top and gently opening the camera.  Out come the rather splendid looking bellows, with all the controls on the front of them. Foolishly I decided it all looked good enough, took off the back (it doesn’t hinge open like many later cameras), put a roll of film in it and went out shooting.

 

Setting up a picture:
The Agifold rangefinder isn’t coupled.  If you not sure what this means, then it goes something like this.  Looking in the viewfinder (you aren’t looking through the taking lens) you typically see the image with a second ghost of the image, offset when out of focus.  Moving the wheel on the Agifold rangefinder, the image and the ghost image will eventually merge into one.  At the point this happens, you now look at the distance markings shown on the wheel, then look down at your lens and set the focus distance on the taking lens accordingly.  Well as you can imagine, this isn’t exactly a quick process, but then that’s the point. There are actually some zone focus markings on the focus ring, so with a bit of care and thought, you can certainly manage landscapes and similar without having to use the rangefinder.

Finding exposure:
So with distance established next to exposure.  The Agifold uses an extinction metering system.  If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a real hoot.  Well to be honest, it’s not really trustworthy, but it can be a bit of extra fun.  Extinction metering is a rather simple system and actually not prone to failing as there isn’t much to go wrong.  The price you pay is accuracy.  To the right of the view finder window is a smaller round window for the metering.  It’s tiny really and you can’t put your eye right up to it.  It takes a little time to acquire the skill of peering into it, with your eye about an inch and half back from it and slightly off to one side.  In the right position you can now see inside the dark void, some numbers looking a little as though they are slightly illuminated.   This is no LED display; the Agifold is from an era when cameras didn’t need batteries. You are in effect viewing numbers being backlit through graduated very dark glass.  You read off the highest number still just visible and that is your exposure value.  So what to do with that?  Well now to the top of the camera near the wheel for the rangefinder is what amounts to a small circular slide rule.  Dial in the film speed, align the exposure value and it will show you the corresponding aperture and shutter speed.  Down to the front of the lens again and set the aperture and shutter speed.  Can you really trust it?  no, take a light meter or just work things out from Sunny Sixteen.

Film speeds are marked in BSI (British Standards Institute) and SCH (Scheinergrade).  This is actually a very complex area and it took right up to 1974 to eventually reach a common standard, so this camera was built before ISO. It's easy enough... given film latitude etc, BSI can be roughly taken to be ASA, which in turn can be taken to be ISO.  SCH was a German system. The Germans actually abandoned SCH in 1934, but it continued in other parts of the world for some time after that.  

Ready to fire:
Ready to take a picture now. Well, not quite.  The shutter needs to be cocked and that has nothing to do with winding the film on.  You’re cocking a leaf shutter in the lens.  Its quite a crude shutter mechanism compared to it’s German counterparts from the same era, but actually I have found it works well enough. The cocking lever is low down on the front of the lens and positioned quite awkwardly.  It can lead you to smudge a finger on the lens if you fumble around for the lever, so a little practice is required.  Now find the shutter button. Not exactly difficult as it’s huge.  It might be better described as a plunger rather than a button.  Lovely great chrome thing on the top of the camera, so your finger won’t be searching around for the button, just reaching a bit to get to the top of it.

Click:
The reward for pressing the shutter button, is a bright but reasonably quiet metallic click sound.  You could do street photography with this machine without being heard so much, but you are going to be seen.  The Agifold is eye catching. You’re definitely holding a camera and frankly, folks around you are going to take an interest in it.  Unfortunately you can’t be ready for your next shot almost immediately; it’s just not that sort of camera.

Advance:
Having fired the shutter, now time to wind on.  Slide open the alloy cover to see the red safe window in the film back.  Turn the round knob on the top left of the camera nice and slowly watching the film markings go past the window until the next number appears centred.  Close the cover and set up again for the next shot.

 

In a hurry?  Don’t take the Agifold.  Of course hurrying isn’t the idea here.  The Agifold makes your photography more conservative.  Twelve shots on a roll and 120 is not the cheapest. The controls take time to use; so it all conspires to slow down the image capturing process and there’s nothing wrong with that. Its a world away from the from the digital process.

 

Growing fonder.
The first roll I ran through the Agifold was pretty awful.  It provided two usable images and that was about it.  There were signs of problems.  Thankfully not mechanical problems but light leaks.  So I set about the bellows with my little bottle of liquid electrical tape.  It’s amazing stuff; hardly easy to work with but it does a great job of stopping light leaks in bellows and remains flexible when dry.  I considered giving up with the Agifold after the first roll, but realised I had really enjoyed the image capturing process.  Another roll quickly followed and gradually results have improved.  I cleaned out the rangefinder and that made a good difference.  Set alongside my Mamiya C220, it is the inferior camera on paper, arguably by a reasonable margin; yet it is somehow really appealing.

The results:

Well, they have been varied from poor to stat with to quite good now.  It has taken some work on the rangefinder  and various other minor adjustments.  Film tracking isn't always what it should be and it can screw up one edge of a film all the way along if you aren't careful.  On any roll film camera with bellows, the front should be opened slowly and carefully.  Pulling the bellows out quickly can create a slight vacuum, which will pull on the frame.   I experienced fewer tracking problems once I realised I need to open the bellows slowly and carefully when film is loaded.  They were probably better than this when new and I have wondered if the 120 spools of the 1950s were possibly slightly thicker or thinner at the two ends than modern ones. In essence, some films will run more smoothly than others.  Whilst you can load a film pretty quickly, with this camera, you shouldn't.

Despite the Agifold's clever little green and red indicator system (its tiny) to warn you when it has been wound on, it is still all too easy to make accidental multiple exposures.  I managed this three times on one roll, but actually, I sort of liked some of the results:

Lomography 100

Lomography 100

With each roll, so far, the Agifold seems to produce more usable and even likeable images. Slow to use certainly, but somehow always enjoyable. Lacking the finesse of German machines of the same era, but quite solidly built and I still think it's lovely looking camera. The lens is single coated, but it copes with colour and black and white quite well.  Edge sharpness is better than I had expected and contrast is certainly acceptable to me. So here are some more images from the Agifold:

Lomography 100

 

Kodak T-Max 100

 

 

Lomography 100

 

Lomography 100

 

This was just about my own experience with an old British camera. I hope you might have enjoyed reading about the Agiliux Agifold and you might be inspired to look for something similar.   Thank you.