The Agiflex - The Camera I Daren't Use

<p>Thanks for showing the Agi to us, really interesting camera, and one that I have never handled. I think that very few made it Downunder.<br>

As for using it, really a hard one there. If it was mine I would have a crack and if it breaks you probably have lost a few dollars, but the thing will still look good on the shelf.<br>

I had a similar thing with a VP Exackta, got halfway through the roll when it jammed, but I was dying to try it out.</p>

<p>If you use it then it breaks, and doesn't work. If you don't use it, it doesn't do you any good.</p>

<p>I think use it, but be sure that it is a worthwhile use. Find a special occasion to bring it out.</p>

<p>Sitting on a shelf, it doesn't matter, the way I see it, if it works or not. Only if you use it.</p>

<p>What a nice set, in great condition. Many of us were after one of those or similar, at some time.<br>

I don't favour you using it. There do have to be clean copies of rare cameras. I know how you feel. I have a brilliant Contax I in lovely nick, that I wouldn't be prepared to repair, that I just wind on & release once in a blue moon. There are a lot more Contax IIs around to waste, and old Leicas just seem to keep working, until, like immortality, they don't.</p>

<p>Excellent post, really informative. Beautiful outfit to have found, in such good condition. My vote would be to use it. As they said, if you never use it, it might just as well be broken. Funny thing, is it actually MAY already be broken. How would you know. There goes that old Schrroedinger's cat again. I say photograph one live and one dead cat, then put it up on your shelf.</p>

<p>Again thanks for the comments and opinions. I would defy a third party to work out the connection between a dilemma about whether to use a classic camera with a slightly doubtful reputation for reliability, and a famous thought experiment like Schrödinger's cat!</p>

<p>Furthermore, I told my repairer about it and he said rather disappointingly that, first, he had never worked on an Agiflex, and second, that British cameras were rubbish anyway. He went on to ask if it felt reasonably smooth upon winding on, (which it does), and said that it might help to lubricate the mechanism so that excessive force would not be needed, making it less likely for something to break when it's operated.</p>

<p>So I'll let him have it next time I see him, and of course, share any<em> possible</em> results.</p>

<p>I'm for using it as well, with the logic others have stated: If you use it and it breaks, then it's a shelf queen, but you're treating it as a shelf queen already anyway, so it's little loss. Further, if you occasionally exercise it (winding on and running the shutter through its speeds), as James has suggested with the Contax, then you <em>are </em>using it, so you might as well do that with film in. With the Agiflex, it looks like only two exercise rounds through all the shutter speeds equals one roll of film. Plus, the passage through of light stops the lenses getting melancholy. :)<br>

<em>--Dave</em></p>

Isn't there a difference between a shelf queen that has been but no longer isn't, and a shelf queen that still could if you would?

What a paradox, if it works, do not use it. I have to agree, I would hate to be the one who breaks it even if I owned it. At

some point it reminds me of the black cat paradox. It is not dead or alive until we open the box. Are you sure it is still

working?

<p>For repairs, what about Ken Ruth at Bald Mountain Camera repairs? I doubt he would be defeated by it.</p>

<p>Mathew</p>

<blockquote>

<p>" it might help to lubricate the mechanism so that excessive force would not be needed, <br>

making it less likely for something to break when it's operated" <strong><em>John Seaman's "repairer"</em></strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is the best advice for sure. Plus with the service, one may be able to take <strong>proactive steps</strong> to remedy design flaw weakness.<br>

Because once the camera malfunctions, it becomes a puzzle and/or requires custom part fabrication.</p>

<p>In this case, "<strong><em>an ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure</em></strong>"<br>

After which, baby it as you put it to use...</p>

<p>Life is too short for worrying about the camera. Use it. Enjoy it. Show us results. </p>

The camera's life may be too short to enjoy much of it. Spare yourself a disappointment and use a camera that can be used without such risk. Life's too short.

<p>That's right, Raid, Q.G., life is too short.</p>

<p>If it was the only classic camera I owned, things might seem different but I've got a shedload of the things clamouring for attention. I'm waiting for some results from an Ensign Autorange 16/20 which I was also somewhat reluctant to use, but for a very different reason.</p>

Only 4 or so years late to this party having just bought an Agiflex with a slow curtain problem for £26 but I have to say on the subject of there having to be a pool of working cameras so don’t use a particular one in case you break it - the OP has never used his camera so he doesn’t know if it’s working or not. The argument is therefore a non-starter.

If he tries the camera and it works then he might (arguably) be justified in retiring it from active service in order that it can be one of a dwindling pool of (as far as was known at the last attempt) working examples. If he tries it and it doesn’t work it was never one of any dwindling band of working cameras. If he tries it and it breaks well, it wasn’t going to be much of a candidate for the dwindling band if it only had a life expectancy of one roll of film.

As camera repairers know, if you don’t use working vintage cameras, they stop working. The old grease goes solid. They rust. The lenses get fungus especially in leather cases apparently.

A camera, like most machines, has a limited lifespan. It is designed to be used until the end of its lifespan. Then it might, or might not, be repairable. But at least it wasn’t wrapped up in cotton wool. It was used. A famous guitar player who shall remain nameless once said, when asked how often he cleaned his guitars, “I don’t clean them; I play the (expletive deleted) things!”

As things stand he doesn’t know if it works so at the moment it’s not a camera because a camera takes pictures. And it’s certainly not a working example because it hasn’t been given any “work” to do. It’s a door stop.

So IMHO it’s ridiculous to suggest that he should use another camera while this one is left in a bag.

Let some light into it - that’s what it’s for. That’s what they are all for.

Sorry for the rant but I feel quite strongly about this. I’ve got valuable old cameras that I use. Should I stop? Should I retire them?Absolutely not. The men who made them would turn in their graves. They didn’t make Museum pieces - they made machines that take pictures. Until they stop taking pictures and become door stops.

a pool of working cameras so don’t use a particular one in case you break it - the OP has never used his camera so he doesn’t know if it’s working or not

 

Well Gordon, my reasons for not using the Agiflex did not include the preservation of a pool of working cameras. And I think I'm an experienced enough user and seller to know if a camera is capable of making pictures without actually running a film through it.

 

In the event, I solved the dilemma of whether or not to use it, by choosing a third option - I sold the whole kit and kaboodle to pass the decision on to someone else.

The weak 'string' in question was originally catgut, and was probably just the victim of old age and shrinkage.

 

I had two Agiflexes and had to repair the first one that I bought. The 'string' snapped on about the 2nd film I put through it. IIRC, I replaced it with heavy guage nylon fishing line the same diameter as the 'catgut'. An offcut of nylon guitar string would serve the same purpose.

 

This was back in the 1960s and I traded in the first (repaired) Agiflex for a model 3 with a better lens that gave me no problems whatsoever. These cameras were both bought to be used, not as novelty items.

 

The cord in question couples the leverwind to the shutter-cocking pulley across the width of the camera. It's not the nightmare to replace that many people make it out to be, and once replaced with something stronger and more resilient, it should last a very long time. In fact the original catgut is quite durable as long as you wind the camera slowly and without snatching at the mechanism.

Edited March 9, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

Well Gordon, my reasons for not using the Agiflex did not include the preservation of a pool of working cameras. And I think I'm an experienced enough user and seller to know if a camera is capable of making pictures without actually running a film through it.

 

In the event, I solved the dilemma of whether or not to use it, by choosing a third option - I sold the whole kit and kaboodle to pass the decision on to someone else.

 

HA! Reading the entire thread paid off for me (prior to commenting), and you dodged the proverbial bullet in selling off the kit!

Must say that I'd have probably used it myself, just because that's the kind of person I am, and in regards to your camera repair person's commentary on British cameras being rubbish, he certainly seems to have either self-defeated or preemptively recused himself, perhaps both- on that single note!

 

That aside, the images you posted of the flowers in your garden, taken with those lenses (or lens, as the case may be) were awesome! Whether or not the camera ever got or gets used, the lenses are magic and there's a way to press them into service, even if it includes taping" them onto a camera body!

 

Well done, sir!

Thanks not only for the original post, but thanks also to whomever dredged it up out of the archives for today's enjoyment.

I believe that this camera was based on the Korelle Reflex. Looks like it anyway, I think the "string" was a weak link in the original Korelle.

I believe that the Reflex Korelle may have been Herbert Keppler's first camera, but whatever the case, this is one re-animation that I approve of.

It's not the nightmare to replace that many people make it out to be, and once replaced with something stronger and more resilient, it should last a very long time.

 

That is good to hear. As I'm just about to put my first roll through a Reflex-Korelle ;)

That is good to hear. As I'm just about to put my first roll through a Reflex-Korelle

The Reflex-Korelle might well be different internally from the Agiflex - then again it might not.

 

The most tricky bit will probably be removing the leather-cloth to get at the screws holding the top plates onto the chassis of the camera. You'll want to keep the 'leather' intact to maintain originality.

 

I had no such qualms with the Agiflex 1 that I repaired, but in the event the covering came off without ripping. There was some stretching, but the leather went back reasonably neatly. Neatly enough for an old beater/user of a camera anyway.

 

Another consideration is that a camera as old as a Reflex Korelle or Agiflex has probably already snapped its 'string' at least once in the past 65 or more years. And any repairer with an ounce of sense will have replaced that bit of old catgut with a better and stronger material.

Edited March 10, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1