Jörg Krüger
Agfa Compact
Agfa Compact, with Agfa Solinar 2.8/39. Introduced in 1980, it has a winder for film advance and the motor also moves the lens out and in, a very advanced feature in those days.
I bought this copy with jammed main switch, the shifter on the right side which also covers the viewer window. "Jammed main switch? Easy to repair!" I thougt. A complete misjudgement. This small camera (it is really compact) is jam-packed with tooth wheels, rods and levers, mostly unsecured, they just fall out if the camera is tilted at the wrong moment. You'll get a sophisticated puzzle.
Perhaps you know that some Agfa Sensors have a peculiarity: the rewinding is done with the advance lever. When you open the back, a part the bottom pops out and you can see the complicated mechanism. The coupling to the film cartridge also swings out, so the camera can be made more compact. Though the Agfa Compact has a winder for rewinding the film, it has that complex mechanism. No wonder, that most Compacts are out of order.
End of the story: I assembled the rest of the camera to take this picture, I have lots of small parts left ...
UPDATE: found a working copy and loaded it immediately with a roll of film. It's really a special model; it's nice, but I have to fight a little bit with the viewfinder and its brilliant frame, and every time the motor driven lens extended I thought, it could be the last time. The exposure meter is very sensitive to back light, only a small source of light in the picture causes underexposure, a button for back light compensation would be really appropriate. On the other hand, the lens itself can handle strong back light very confident.
The results were somewhat disappointing, colors were dull and the contrast low, but I blame the film for it, a Kodak Farbwelt 200 (although "Farbwelt" means "world of colors"). Sharpness is a mixed bag: some pictures taken under cloudy conditions are very sharp, some pictures at bright sunlight are not.
Examples:
For sharpness: you can easily read the "10" on the signs in the background.
For back light
Agfa Compact
Agfa Compact, with Agfa Solinar 2.8/39. Introduced in 1980, it has a winder for film advance and the motor also moves the lens out and in, a very advanced feature in those days.
I bought this copy with jammed main switch, the shifter on the right side which also covers the viewer window. "Jammed main switch? Easy to repair!" I thougt. A complete misjudgement. This small camera (it is really compact) is jam-packed with tooth wheels, rods and levers, mostly unsecured, they just fall out if the camera is tilted at the wrong moment. You'll get a sophisticated puzzle.
Perhaps you know that some Agfa Sensors have a peculiarity: the rewinding is done with the advance lever. When you open the back, a part the bottom pops out and you can see the complicated mechanism. The coupling to the film cartridge also swings out, so the camera can be made more compact. Though the Agfa Compact has a winder for rewinding the film, it has that complex mechanism. No wonder, that most Compacts are out of order.
End of the story: I assembled the rest of the camera to take this picture, I have lots of small parts left ...
UPDATE: found a working copy and loaded it immediately with a roll of film. It's really a special model; it's nice, but I have to fight a little bit with the viewfinder and its brilliant frame, and every time the motor driven lens extended I thought, it could be the last time. The exposure meter is very sensitive to back light, only a small source of light in the picture causes underexposure, a button for back light compensation would be really appropriate. On the other hand, the lens itself can handle strong back light very confident.
The results were somewhat disappointing, colors were dull and the contrast low, but I blame the film for it, a Kodak Farbwelt 200 (although "Farbwelt" means "world of colors"). Sharpness is a mixed bag: some pictures taken under cloudy conditions are very sharp, some pictures at bright sunlight are not.
Examples:
For sharpness: you can easily read the "10" on the signs in the background.
For back light