Christening the Clack

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Two examples of the ubiquitous Agfa Clack, with their younger cousin, the Click.</p><div></div>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>My first camera was very nearly a Clack. My father decided I'd better have a camera as a birthday present, and I'd been ogling the smooth lines of the Clack in a store window for some weeks. However, my father, (who's family had undergone some fairly severe disagreements with the Germans in the North African desert a decade earlier), was still in the national "Buy British!" mode, and I ended up with an Ensign Ful-Vue which looked even smarter with it's huge and brilliant viewfinder. Also, as my father was quick to point out, it gave me twelve images to the film rather than the Clack's eight... So, I didn't get my Clack until about a year ago, and the images I'll post will be from the first film I've put through it.</p>

<p>All in all, the Clack is rather a minor masterpiece of design. Manufactured by Agfa Camera Werk AG in Munich from 1954 until 1965, they were made in their thousands to satisfy the needs of a German nation returning to affluence after the deprivations following WWII; originally constructed from metal, they are commonly found in the plastic version, and I've never come across a metal example. The camera is solidly and very competently moulded in smooth, heavy plastic with a faux snake or lizard skin vinyl covering. The back/ bottom is attached by a hefty revolving catch that really draws the two body parts together and seals them firmly shut.</p><div></div>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Technically, the Clack is basic but ingenious. Using 120 rollfilm, it has a simple 95mm single-element meniscus lens with a choice of two apertures, somewhere around f/11 and f/12.5,( or f/16, both sizes being quoted by different sources), the smaller aperture having an inbuilt yellow filter. The apertures are selected by a lever on the side of the lens with graphics indicating "Cloudy" or Sunny", along with a near or distant focus option, a close-up lens being inserted in the light path for distances between 3 and 10 feet (1-3m.) I tried this out on the "Bokeh" image below, hoping to see what the OOF areas would look like, and the result is certainly interesting... Covering the image format of 6x9cm is asking rather a lot from a simple meniscus lens, so the designers conceived a film plane molded in a curve to compensate for the shortcomings of the lens, and this works surprisingly well. The feature is apparent in the photograph above. I first came across this ingenious solution in the beautiful French Photax cameras, where it works equally well. A simple self-cocking shutter gives a speed of about 1/30th, or "B", and the shutter release seems to move downwards forever before producing a welcome click. The viewfinder is a simple plastic tube with a lens and an eyepiece, but it seems to be reasonably accurate; I guess being centered over the lens helps reduce parallax error.</p>

<p>Of course, it was expected that the vast majority of users would want no more than contact prints from the large negatives to stick in their albums, and enlargements were not really intended, but the images are surprisingly sharp. The Click, which began production around 1958, is of similar construction but has a more sophisticated achromatic doublet lens and a 6x6 negative format, and the images are correspondingly of much better quality, but more of the Click in a future post. I managed to get eight reasonable images from the Clack on a roll of Fuji Acros processed in PMK Pyro, and I'll post them below. Scans from an Epson V700 using Silverfast software.</p><div></div>

[rick_drawbridge]

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[greg_nixon2]

<p>I am constantly amazed at the superb quality that you get from such simple cameras. The photos are sharper than lenses costing many times more than these simple meniscus lenses. Do you pick the days that would suit the camera? Does the PMK Pyro really surpass all others that I see.<br>

Of course there is your photographers 'eye' that many would strive in vane for.<br>

Really good stuff</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Thanks, <strong>Greg</strong>, I appreciate your comments. I<em> do</em> tend to pick lighting that suits the cameras; there's no reward in pointing a meniscus lens into a bright sky, for example, and the light overcast conditions that featured in this post are ideal. Contrast should be kept to a minimum. As for the development, developers are pretty much a matter of individual choice, but I find the Pyro developers produce the range of tones and contrast gradients that please me most.</p>

[georg_s1]

<p>Rick, thanks for sharing your findings and fine images about/from the Clack. Really like "Lake 003" and "Bridge". Time to take my Clack out for a walk - thanks for the "reminder".</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>A steady hand and a good sense of composition and style can make these old box cameras unbelievably good in practice. Bravo.</p>

[mwmcbroom]

<p>What the others said. It sure helps to have a good eye and a steady hand. But that Clack still delivers surprisingly outstanding photos. Makes me want to add one -- and a Click for the square pics -- to my collelction.</p>

<p> </p>

[heqm]

<p>Between the responses to my Brownie Hawkeye posts and this thread, I'm wondering if we're seeing a Meniscus Lens Movement: the return of the fixed-focus, one-shutter-speed, one-lens-opening camera. They're certainly capable of good work in sympathetic hands. Not exactly the opposite of Holga/Lomo, but definitely in a different direction.<br>

<br />I think I'm going to have to try Pyro sometime soon. Even with all the variables in scanning and displaying on the monitor, Rick, you're getting great results with it.</p>

[rajmohan.]

<p>Rick - thank you for introducing me to these cool cameras, of which I had not previously heard. Great lookers, complemented by your lovely images!</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Have to love the Clack, and what a great name...along with the Click! Even with this humble beast you have captured some nice light....Autumn....you have to love it!</p>

[Mike Gammill]

Sharp results. Clearly one of the better meniscus lenses. Thanks for sharing.

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Impressive results from such a simple camera Rick. The images seem to have an early 20th century feel to them. I really like the cemetery and lake 003 shots. Thanks for sharing.</p>

[marc_bergman1]

<p>Rick,</p>

<p>These photos have a wonderful depth to them. I am not use to seeing this from one of these box cameras. I don't know if it was the lighting, your composition, or the developer.</p>

<p>One question I do have. When you press the shutter; does the Click go "click" and does the Clack go "clack"?</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Thanks for the interest! I'm encouraged by the response, enough to perhaps continuing to experiment with some of the old cameras that have sat idle on my shelves for quite some time. So, you have only yourselves to blame... Thanks, <strong>Marc</strong>, I'd place the credit for the "depth" squarely with the lighting and the developer, and an interesting old lens; as for the shutter noise, I'd hoped for something along the lines of your query, but I'm sorry to relate that both shutters make much the same noise, a nice quiet "Click" rather than anything as strident as a "Clack".</p>

<p>Thanks <strong>Alan</strong>, airing these older and more primitive cameras on CMS is possibly more in the spirit of the Forum than the classy beasts I'm more prone to banging on about; it's the "unpredictability factor" that I find attractive. Yes, <strong>Tony</strong>, the low light of Winter is sneaking up on us; if only we could organise the great light along with a little less cold. I feel frost in the air, these mornings... And thank you <strong>JDM</strong>, <strong>Mike</strong>, <strong>Michae</strong>l, <strong>Rajmohan</strong> and <strong>Greg</strong>, for your input; <strong>Georg</strong>, when you've finished a film in your Clack I hope you'll post some samples here.</p>

<p> </p>

[georg_s1]

<p>Rick, I've shot about 5 rolls with my Clack (first Model without built-in yellow-filter).<br>

Most of the shots came out a bit too blurred (usually a mix between camera-shake and too demanding subjects).<br>

Here's a recent one, already posted in the Classic Manual Camera Weekend-thread:<br>

<img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1519/25962828912_3d73e09112_z.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Agfa Clack I, slip-on-Yellow-filter, Rollei RPX100 in Xtol 1+2,<br>

printed on old stock Polymax II RC-paper<br>

Flickr added a lot of sharpening, but the print is fairly sharp </p>

<p>Btw, I really have to "crank" the shutter-release, a more gentle actuation resulted in totally overexposed negatives. </p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p><strong>Georg</strong>, that's quite impressive. I noticed that my negatives had some of the uneven tone your sky exhibits; there's probably quite a bit of internal reflection bouncing around the interior of the Clack and that may be the cause, along with a lens that's showing it's age. It sounds as if your shutter is sticking and "hanging up" rather than closing promptly. After 5 rolls it should have loosened up if it was going to, but a few minutes of constant working might help it.</p>

[Argenticien]

<p>Very nice work with such a simple camera, Rick. Lake 003 is quite beautiful. I've got a Kodak Six-20 Flash Brownie that is of much the same design, but I'd say a lesser execution. It's metal, but stamped, I think: it feels sharp-edged, tinny, and ill-fitting all round. After mucking about with film re-spooling, triple-checking that it is closed properly, and then finding ideal conditions (bright but non-flaring, or 'light overcast' as you said), the Brownie can do passable work. Maybe it's time I tried a Clack. Either way, there certainly is a bit more, er, adventure in using these cameras as compared to, say, a Rolleiflex.<br>

'Fairly severe disagreements with the Germans in the North African desert' wins the Epic Understatement Award for the entire 20th Century, by the way. Fabulously formulated!<br>

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