Agfa Isolette II

Pocket Rocket

 A bit of an oddball this one - being a folder and a medium format camera, it wouldn't strike me as something that I would be immediately interested in. I am pretty pleased with the Rolleicord I have and in general I am not shooting too many 120 films nowadays but for £10, being described as working well and with a clean Solinar - I just couldn't resist.

So, as far as I can tell, my Agfa Isolette II comes from the mid-to-late 1950s. I am not sure of exact dates and honestly, Agfa doesn't come across to me as a company which would meticulously record serial numbers and dates, but you can get a rough idea by looking on the top of the camera: if your Isolette II has a screw in the middle of the wind knob or a depth of field scale on the left, they were made before 1955. Both of these features vanish at around 1955 and the top looks plane like mine with a (useless) ISO reminder. I wish they had kept the depth of field scale.

Agfa Isolettes are best known for the 4 more common variants - I, II, III and Super Isolette, with the first three models coming in a mix-and-match variety with different shutters, ranging from Vario to Synchro Compur, and lenses from Agnars to Solinars. There are other less well known variants like the early Isolette spelled "Jsolette", the Isolette 4.5, the Isolette V,  the Isolette L and the Automatic 66. Each one if them is (one way or another) a variation of the main four Isolettes mentioned above. The main difference between the four main models are:
- Isolette I: most affordable, no double exposure lock, a mixture of coated and uncoated Agnars depending on the date and variant.
- Isolette II: with double exposure lock, coated lenses.
- Isolette III: double exposure lock, coated lenses and uncoupled range finder.
- Super Isolette: top of the range, coupled range finder, double exposure lock, automatic film transport and Solinar lens.

You can fit all these in a jacket's pocket

For some reason, these cameras look so much more handsome from close than in pictures. Actually, looking at the pictures I took of mine, it looks sort of boring. One thing that is quite impressive is the quality of the aluminium parts. This is proper German engineering of the previous century, almost seventy years later and they are still shiny and clean with no corrosion or tarnish. It is in much better shape than my old, molly-cuddled, Zeiss 518/16.

Another thing that looks better than my old Zeiss Nettar (actually I had two of them) is the extension mechanism, there is definitely less rattling, but truth be told, I never had any issues with the Nettar. What is not so great are the bellows - they are usually falling apart and they have more holes than a kitchen sieve. Mine are in relatively good condition but I am under no illusion though that they will soon need replacing.

Online remedies to pinholes on the bellows include painting them with black oil paint or liquid tape, brushing oil to soften them, patch them with super glue and fabric, etc.. All these are in vain as you can virtually get a new hole every time you fold the camera and open it again. I would say pay the £38 and buy new ones. Google "Sandeha Lynch" and see what you will get, he has excellent reputation. I have ordered a new set of black bellows from him and I am going to replace them at some point.

Another issue are the lubricants that Agfa used for the lens helicoid and the rangefinder for the III-version: they dry solid. I am lucky as my lens is easy to rotate but not everyone is.

 

Checking focus and adjusting the rangefinder

My sample came with a Prontor-SV shutter, not exactly a top-dog but very well respected nevertheless. Speeds from 1/25 to 1/300 work well, anything below needs cheerleading and encouragement. There is also a 7 seconds self timer but in all honesty, seeing how slow the slow speeds are, I am not going to even try to set it before servicing the camera. On the other hand, on the back of the camera there is a lever that activates "T" mode when you select "B" on the shutter. One press of the shutter button opens the shutter and flicking the lever shuts it down. A word of caution though: if you leave the camera on T mode and you attempt to fold the camera, the metal rod that triggers the shutter moves past the shutter lever and gets disengaged. Ask me how I know it. You can engage it again by gently folding the camera and try to push it to it's original position.

Another couple of features that tend to go unnoticed include: a swinging spool carrier that makes putting the film in (and taking it out) less fiddly. Also there is a metal guide that keeps the middle of the film flat on the feeding end. Another feature is a tiny window next to the advance knob that turns red when film needs advancing. These are minor additions but in a way it shows that the design engineers were keeping the user in mind .

The star of the show - the beautifully coated Solinar 75f/3.5

 Let's talk a bit about the star of the show: the lens; a beautifully single-coated Solinar 75f/3,5 in pristine condition. If we believe internet wisdom, for every 10 Isolettes sold, one had a Solinar. Not exactly super-rare but uncommon nevertheless. Here is something you might not know: increasing the focal length by 10mm was a cheap way for manufacturers to improve performance as the edges of the frame would be excluded from the picture. Of course they were paying a 2/3 of a stop price for this. In general, in 6x6 format, a 75f/3.5 lens is more difficult to manufacture than the 85f/4.5 and a sign of confidence that manufacturers were happy with it's performance wide open. Also, if you see the word "colour" in front of the lens, it means it is multi-coated.

I might be going off a bit on a tangent here but there are plenty of posts online, unfairly maligning folding cameras by comparing them to Rolleiflex and Hasselblad or Fujica cameras. Most of the criticism revolves around the debate of "front cell focusing" Vs "whole unit focusing" lens. Now, without going into too much technical details, lenses that focus by moving the whole optical assembly have an advantage due to having the optical elements spaced in a way that minimise optical aberrations. That way, the whole lens moves and optical aberrations are kept to a minimum in close distance and also infinity.

The front cell lens focuses by moving the front element back and forth whilst the rest elements stay in place. As the distance between the first and the second element gets bigger (i.e. when focusing close) the aberrations get worse. So the optical engineers optimise the lens on a specific distance. With the Solinar, this is around 15 feet (4 meters) - it will not do very well closer than 10ft (3 meters) as the front element moves quite a bit away from the second element. Indeed, when focusing close, the lens displays a glow on the highlights which results in a picture that lacks details.

Notice the red "10" and "35" and the red dot before f/11.

 Please keep in mind that the distance that the front element has to travel between 3.5ft and 15ft is relatively *much (much) bigger* than the distance it will travel between 15ft and infinity. So even past the optimal focusing distance, the lens remains well corrected for aberrations.

When you look at the distance scale on the lens you will notice two distance markings (10ft and 30ft) being in red. Somewhere between these two distance settings is where (in my experience) the Solinar performs best. If you set the aperture on the red dot (around f/9.5) and you select 10ft, you have everything in focus between 7.5 ft (2.5 meters) to 16.5ft (5 meters). If you select the 30ft mark, you have everything sharp from 15ft (4.5 meters) to infinity. So basically it helps with using zone focusing - as I said, if you nail focus around 4 meters with aperture around f/11 you get the best of the Solinar. As useful as zone focusing is, nothing beats an accurately focused picture.

Another thing to keep in mind; although these lenses are "standard" lenses for a 6x6 camera, in reality they are short telephoto lenses. This means that they have shallow depth of field and they are prone to camera shake. Using any speed of 1/50 and below will introduce a small element of camera shake. So any difference between different lenses becomes even more irrelevant. With heavier TLR cameras, it is easier to hold them more stable.

One last thing and I'm done with critical sharpness performance: as the negative becomes bigger (6x6, 6x7, 6x9...), film flatness becomes crucial. The slightest bent of the negative will result in a blurry image - when handling these cameras always make sure the film pressure plate springs back and forth nicely.

Talking about good practice; it is a good idea to erect the bellows *slowly* when opening the camera and *then* advance the film. The rationale behind this is that a sudden opening of the bellows will create a vacuum that will suck the film in towards the bellows (and therefore out of the focusing plane). If you advance it after you *slowly* open the camera, you keep the film taunt.

Already from f/4.5 the lens is plenty sharp.Orange filter used.

Agfa has an excellent reputation when it comes to the lenses on these folders. Agnars and Apotars are triplets, usually coated. The Apotars use rare earth elements in the optical mix that made them better corrected to aberrations compared to Agnars. Solinars are Tessar-type lenses, the newer 75f/3,5 has different optical mixture and coatings and is recalculated to the 75mm focal length. The older 85mm Solinar is a good quality lens too. In all honesty - at f/11 - you need to have a very good scanner to see the difference between them all. In case you wonder: no, you cannot swap between 75mm and 85mm lenses. You can if all are the same focal length.

My Agfa Isolette II comes with a Prontor-SV shutter which is of good quality. It offers speeds from 1sec to 1/300sec plus B. Different versions of Prontor shutter exist, mostly differing in the positions of the self timer, flash-synch and cable release port. Always remember: don't change the shutter speed after you cocked the shutter lever; this can cause damage to the shutter springs. Adjust the aperture instead.

There is not much to report when doing a review of a 1950s viewfinder folder really. I found an old external rangefinder and I used it to help me with calculating the distance. The camera together with the rangefinder and an external light meter can fit inside my jacket pockets although for my test roll I decided to carry a tripod and a  shutter release cable with me.

Did I say that the viewfinder is *very* small? Yes it is, wearing glasses and looking through it can be a challenge. It's not any smaller than the Nettar though. On the other hand, the Telex external rangefinder I have, is the definition of the unusable accessory - the distance markings are faded and you can't see it if you are wearing glasses because the peep hole is too small but you can't see without the glasses either. Good luck..

Placed on tripod and shot at f/16 and 1/50th. Yellow filter used.

 If you need exact focusing, using an external rangefinder is an added step in the process. One way I work around this is by setting the same distance on the lens and the rangefinder (i.e to 10ft) and then -whilst looking through the rangefinder - walk towards the subject until the images align. Then I compose and take the picture. I don't fiddle with the lenses to find focus and then transfer it, I use my legs instead.

Another ergonomic hiccup revolves around the use of a remote release cable - if you have an external rangefinder it is impossible to screw it in the shutter button threads. You will have to use the "cable release nipple" (who the hell thought that this is a good term to use..) located on the shutter assembly. Now, for some reason, you really have to push it hard to trip the shutter - my short, standard cable release doesn't work, I had to fork out the older, longer one I have in order to make it work. I am not sure if this an issue with my camera or it is how the Prontor SV shutter works...

Please remember that if you are using a cable release on the lens release nipple, the double exposure prevention does not work. You can get interesting double exposures like the one below.

Double exposure with AndreiTtarkovsky vibes...

Some of these folders might have foggy film advance windows - yes, that red window on the back becomes almost opaque and you can't see the numbers. Mine are just about visible but I think that I might end up replacing it with a plastic, red Cokin filter I have.

As I mentioned earlier on, pinholes on the bellows is something that you should take for granted when you buy an Isolette. A quick search on the internet will return plenty of pictures either destroyed by light leaks or bad focus. Viewing them can be quite disheartening and can put people off. The reality of it is that the Agfa Isolette II is a camera capable of exceptionally sharp pictures once you take the time to understand what the limitations are, use a tripod and an external rangefinder, replace the bellows and of course learn the basics of exposure. There is no reason why a perfectly capable camera, which after 70 years had a service, shouldn't produce top results.

Overall I had great fun shooting this camera. It is a difficult camera to use for portraits but it weighs nothing to have it with you during the morning walks. My test results were great too; there is a reason why a lot of people like these cameras: the Isolette II gave me very sharp and contrasty negatives from f/4.5 onwards and sharpness/contrast peaked, I would say, around f/11 to f16. Even wide open at f/3.5 at a distance of about 2m (6.5 ft) the lens gave a very respectable performance although it was a bit of a challenge nailing exact focus. The Solinar is streets ahead of my much-loved, pre-war and uncoated Triotar and handles contrasty scenes with ease. The Solinar is a better lens from f/3,5 to f/8 than the Novar, although the Novar is quite a good performer too.

At f/11 the Solinar is exceptionally sharp lens. Yellow filter used.

 
 Summary

The history of folding cameras is a rabbit hole that I never fully explored. It is fascinating and I guarantee you'll never feel bored researching into it as there are so many great cameras made by almost every major camera manufacturer.

Amongst all these cameras, Agfa folders do not seem to be the obvious cameras to get. The Zeiss Ikons and the Voiglanders of this world seem to be holding the limelight, leaving Agfa playing second fiddle in this market. Actually, for many users, even a Moskva or an Iskra might be a more obvious choice than an Agfa. And don't get me wrong - these are great soviet cameras but the build quality of the Agfa is superior.

The issues with the bellows contribute to these cameras being ignored - no doubt. But an Agfa with a Solinar and Apotar definitely warrants the extra cost of replacing them and I would be tempted to add also the Agnars into the mix hadn't been the rather limited shutters they come with. Prices seem to still be on the very affordable side as most people tend to overlook them.

My Agfa Isolette II is waiting on the queue to be sent for a complete overhaul. I think, together with my Rolleicord (already had one), it deserves it. Yes, it is a slow camera to use and it will probably be used only for landscapes but the Solinar lens is excellent and the 6x6 negatives are an indulgence.

Why to carry my Nikon F5 on a mountain walk when I can carry the Agfa?

Recommended (depending on condition and price) 

Medium format vs 35mm