A Few Agfa Isola Photo Samples. Or, A Comedy of Errors.

<p>I have this little Agfa Isola. Before I attempt to put a better lens and shutter on it, I decided to take some pics w/ the stock Agnar that's on it. My troubles began when my slow speed film didn't arrive. I decided to shoot Tri-X (it's all I have), use a yellow filter, and meter at 200. Should work, right? Well....... the lens SHOULD have been cleaned, but I didn't. The hood kept falling off, and it turned out that I had no yellow filter to fit the camera, with or without a hood. So I had to try shooting it at iso 100. When I went out w/ the camera, I saw that metering was a bad concept for a camera that only has shutter speeds of B, 1/30 and 1/100 (with 1/100 probably running at an actual 1/50). There IS no metering. You just shoot it and hope the latitude of the film works. Well, I was already 3 to 4 stops off no matter what I did, especially since I kept bumping the speed setting to 1/30. Yes, I was shooting Tri-X on a bright day, at 1/30 and f11 most of the time. Hmmmm. Some clouds moved in, but they were nowhere near where the sun was, so no help.</p>

<p>The bus ride to the beach was very, very strange. It seemed to be populated by Wolverine hatted Canadians from a SNL skit, sleeping tourists, and a few other people speaking a language I have never heard. But I soldiered on, unloaded my bike from the bus, and set out for a ride on the beach. Unfortunately, when I opened the camera to remove the film, I saw that it was loosely wrapped on the spool, and a lot of light leaked in there. Next time I open it up in the dark.</p>

<p>Development was in D76, and I reduced the development time by about 15%. It didn't make any difference, the shots were pretty bad. It actually may be a decent enough lens, but w/ a maximum shutter speed of 1/100 (1/50), and a minimum aperture of 6.3, I don't have any use for it. Negs were projected onto my enlarger's base board, photographed w/ a digicrap P&S camera, and fiddled with in PS. I hope to have a real scanner soon, and a Solinar lens in Compur shutter on the Isola, so maybe better shots next posting. Actually, I really like the looks of the shots here, but they are really bad.</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 1</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 2</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 3</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 4</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 5</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 6</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 7</p><div></div>

<p>Shot 8</p><div></div>

<p>I wonder why the photos look so big here? They're only 699 PPI.</p>

<p>Interesting, the photos have a nice gritty quality. There doesn't seem to be a lot wrong with the lens, even though its dirty? I guess the pictures look bigger because they're square, using the full 700 x 700 pixel limit - we're more accustomed to seeing them in landscape format say 700 wide by 500 high.</p>

 

<p>Steve, I actually like these shots, composition is very good; as far as the image definition goes, even if the lens was dirty, it should have come out better; something is lost between development and scanning.<br>

Personally, I would have to guess that more time was needed in the development and fixing time, but that's just me. Also during scanning, you can probably use free software that do level and contrast management, check the download section at CNET.com, there are tons of free stuff there.<br>

Thanks for posting.</p>

I have this impression too when I post. I think the lens may be OK but under these conditions it's hard to judge. There is a Ilford Pan F. This would be right from speed. My own results with D76 though are often unsatifactory. I remember reading about XP1 when it was released that you could choose your ISO and the C41 would co-operate. I found my bright sun shots way too dark. Might be ok... I guess you will be moving to a more fexible setting of shutter and lens. In such situations you can use sun glasses as a kind of ND filter. Don't foget your Foster Grants!!

<p><strong>Steve</strong>, it looks to me as if most of the problems aren't camera related. I'm sure a lens clean and something like Acros or Pan F would see a vast improvement on a sunny day. 1/100th at f/11 isn't too far off the mark for Pan F in sunlight, and Acros can accommodate that. Mind you, the edge fogging doesn't help matters... And a proper scanner would certainly help! You have some nice images there, for all that.</p>

<p>I know, it looks like development issues doesn't it? But I use this D76 all the time (seems like a classic Tri-X developer to me), and my other negs look OK. One thing I forgot to mention is that I did screw up somewhat, as yesterday morning I discovered that after about a dozen drops my trusty thermometer is off about 8-10 degrees, so I bought another one. However, I used this same developer, fixer, and w/ that same thermometer yesterday, and got great results on a roll of film from a different camera. Maybe my watch is off too :) Now that I've confirmed that my early Solinar lens takes nice shots (the roll I developed yesterday), I'll attempt to hack it onto the Isola. 1/100 top shutter speeds are far too limiting if you live in a sunny locale and like to shoot 400 speed films. I have some slow Ilford film coming that I'd like to try. My one outing w/ Fuji Acros was not good. After looking at those flat negs, I decided I may as well be shooting digital (or T-Max).</p>

<p>Still, I would like to duplicate these ugly type of shots again if I could and make some prints. They look like shots of Daytona Beach from the 50's or earlier.</p>

Like Ralf, I really like these. They manage to make the modern world look like the 1950s, which makes me wonder if styles in the real world have changed as much as we think, or whether our mind superimposes the look of old photos on the world the photos were taken of.