A Surprising Agifold

[John Seaman]

The Agifold was made by AGI, Aeronautical and General Industries in Croydon around the late 1950's. Agifolds were 6x6 folders made from the 1940's, the company having diversified from military work after the war. The early model had a combined eye level/waist level finder in a housing at the top which slid sideways to release the front door catch. This late version has an uncoupled rangefinder and an extinction meter. Very unusually for a folder, it has lever wind, although there's no auto mechanism, you still have to use the red window. Even more unusually, it has automatic shutter cocking, driven by the film advance via a lever you can see to the right of the lens. AGI also made the Reflex Korelle based Agiflex, and the 35mm Agimatic. It's said that all the components including the shutters were made by AGI themselves.

https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/451552-the-agimatic/

https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/485459-the-agiflex-the-camera-i-darent-use/

The Agifold is very nicely made and finished and this one seems to be in full working order, with a well made leather ever ready case. My only criticism of it relates to the viewfinder and extinction meter. The eyepieces are incredibly small making it a royal PITA to use, made worse by the whole assembly being set forward on the top plate. So you can't get your eye close enough, and forget using it with glasses. It reminds me of the contemporary Agimatic which had a similar squinty arrangement.

Here's the camera, no pictures from it yet. That's it and thanks for looking.

Edited February 25, 2023 by John Seaman

[kmac]

Minty looking camera, interesting too. The nearest I have to it is a Dacora Royal, which also has lever advance and cocks the shutter, but must be continually wound to bring the next frame into view in the red window, just like your Agifold.

Yes that viewfinder is certainly too far forward ... wonder what the designers were thinking ? Perhaps there was an after-market viewfinder extension that clipped into the cold shoe, it would be very handy.

[rodeo_joe1]

The Agifold nameplate looks as if it covers a cutout in the top-plate. I wonder if the designer(s) left space for a selenium cell and meter? 

Slight nitpick. AGI was an acronyn for Aeronautical and General Instruments, not Industries. 

I've mentioned owning Agiflex I and II cameras before. The camera bodies were quite well made, but the lens optical quality was barely acceptable. So I'd be interested in seeing what the image quality of that Agifold is like. 

P. S. I'd almost forgotten also owning an AGI Agiscope enlarger, bought out of pocket money when I was about 13 years old. Apart from an aluminium column, it was a lightweight all-plastic thing - including the non-interchangeable lens! Needless to say, the IQ of the prints wasn't that great either. 

[John Seaman]

1 hour ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

AGI was an acronym for Aeronautical and General Instruments, not Industries. 

I stand corrected. I somehow doubt that they planned a Selenium meter, they seemed to be happy with the extinction type. Although in the slightly later plastic Agilux Autoflash, they did use Selenium, even to the extent of auto exposure:

I also found an article by Simon Hawkett about the Agifold, but he doesn't seem to realise the shutter cocking is automatic;

https://simonhawketts.co.uk/2015/11/12/agilux-agifold-120-film-camera/

9 hours ago, kmac said:

Perhaps there was an after-market viewfinder extension that clipped into the cold shoe, it would be very handy.

It would have been better to put in a decent finder on the first place. Thanks for the comments.

[rodeo_joe1]

On 2/26/2023 at 5:21 PM, John Seaman said:

It would have been better to put in a decent finder on the first place.

I've thought that about almost every rangefinder camera I've picked up. Why do they fit such a tiny squint-hole, with an even more minute and difficult to see coloured blob or split rectangle in the middle? 

The only decently-sized rangefinder I can remember looking through was the one on the monster Mamiya Press camera. 

Yes, I wear spectacles, but the amount of dioptre adjustment is usually totally inadequate for my unaided eyesight. Or the eye-hole is metal-rimmed and apparently deliberately designed to scratch eyeglasses. Not the case with the EVF on my Sony mirrorless camera, which I can see with crystal clarity thanks to its wide dioptre adjustment. And the Sony body is as small as a good many film rangefinders. 

[conrad_hoffman]

Yeah, I've got a couple cameras with tiny peepholes. Makes me want a true action finder- the wire frame on a Speed Graphic!

[John Seaman]

Browsing photo.net I found a very informative and knowledgeable 2003 post about the Agifold series by our old friend Peter Naylor I hope he doesn't mind my repeating it here, wherever he is.

Peter Naylor wrote: John My apologies for coming in late on this as I've only just noticed your original query about the red and green windows on your Agifold, but it's an interesting thread anyway. I'm quite an Agiluxian Aficianado, having been brought up not far from their factory in Purley Way, Croydon, Surrey, UK. I have all their models, plus quite a few original and copied manuals. You're quite correct in your last post assumption, namely that the green and red windows on your early Agifold are for use with the ortho and pan B & W films still knocking around in the late 40s/early 50s. Specifically, quoting from the OM: - "WINDING THE FILM - By moving the buttons on the back of the Agifold, the green window (for panchromatic film) or the red window (for orthochromatic film, can be opened". Interestingly, the next model Agifold (the Series 111), introduced around 1955, only has a single red window. One other feature about all the 4 Agifold models, and the 3 Agiflex SLRs too, is that the back doors come completely off rather than hinge open. In case you've ever wondered why, it's because there was an interchangeable accessory plate back available. Regarding the porky dimensions of the early Agifolds, which are quite massive compared to say, the AGFA Isolette folders, it's reputedly because Agilux's parent company AGI (Aeronautical & General Instruments) made the original "Agifolds" for the British Military during WW2 - except they would have been called something like "17489635-3758 Camera, Hand, For The Use Of". Like just about everything for the military, it would have had to be big, heavy and clumsy. After WW2 when Agilux was formed to make cameras for the civilian market, it must have seemed an easy choice to market these original military AGI cameras virtually unchanged, but now calling them Agilux Agifolds. By 1955, when the Series 111 Agifold was introduced, its dimensions were considerably slimmer, although still not quite in the Isolette 111 class. The last Agifold, the Series IV of about 1959, is basically a Series III but with modern shutter speed progressions and a thumb lever wind, rather than a knob, is an especially nice camera. It's a shame that during the entire production run of all 4 Agifolds, there was only the 3-element f4.5 Cooke Triplet type Agilux Anastigmat lens available. Agifold made their own optics and were quite capable of making a better and faster 4-element Tessar type lens, such as was standard on the Agiflex models, but chose for reasons unknown (probably to do with extra costs) to stay with the basic 3-element ones. Hope this is of some help, mate!