Andrew in Austin Posted September 4, 2003 Posted September 4, 2003 <p>Photo taken with an Agfa Super Isolette, Agfa Optima film, 20 minutes after sunset, with a beer mug used for a tripod.</p> <p>I have an Agfa Super Isolette that needs a CLA. One of the particulars is it needs to have the rangefinder adjusted. It's off by more than 10 percent.</p> <p>Has anyone had their Super Isolette serviced recently or no of repair technician comfortable with performing a CLA on one?</p><div></div> Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
pennington Posted September 4, 2003 Posted September 4, 2003 A guy named Jurgen Kreckel did a CLA on my Super Speedex. The results were fantastic and the price was very reasonable. You might want to take a look at this page and scroll down to find a little more on Jurgen. http://www.foldingcameras.com/articles.htm
edhebert Posted September 4, 2003 Posted September 4, 2003 I'd contact Jurgen Kreckel. He seems to be very experienced with resurrecting old Isolettes. www.foldingcamerasrestoration.com
bob fowler Posted September 4, 2003 Posted September 4, 2003 Beer mug for a tripod... I guess you could have done worse! :-)
Andrew in Austin Posted September 4, 2003 Author Posted September 4, 2003 The lighting is a street light in the parking lot and because I was using the camera at work that day, I was without a light meter. Thanks for the recommendations. Jurgen was on my list. Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
furcafe Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 Ken Ruth of Photography on Bald Mountain (www.baldmtn.com) could also fix your Super Isolette.
jaroslav_ilnytskyi Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 Andrew, Come on, as your colleague from Classic Cameras Repair Forum (if I am not mistaken) I would thought you can give it a try by yourself. Normally, there should be just 2 screws to adjust, one for vertical (adjusted first), another- for horisontal adjustment. I never tried this on Super Isolette, but did this on a number Olympuses (RC,RD), Konica S2, Kodak duo 620, Bessa 6x9, all with coupled rangefinders, it's all is managable. Normally, the screws are under a top cover. Sorry, if you are familiar with this and decided to go for the professional repair for some particular reason.
Andrew in Austin Posted September 5, 2003 Author Posted September 5, 2003 Jaroslav, I've redone my Isolette III/Ansco Speedex R with great results. I've also cleaned the viewfinder and done minor adjustments on range finders on more than a few compact 35mm cameras. On the Isolette III series, one can remove the uncoupled-range finder from the camera to work on it and colimating the lens involves a straight forward adjustment of the focus ring on the front cell. The Super Isolette on the other hand has an automatic frame counter like a Rollei. Plus, it has unit focusing of the lens groups rather than front cell focusing. So colimation of the focus requires a different technique. I would be guessing as I go into the service. So, based on the first rule of camera repair, thou shall not do any harm, I'm willing to send it out. Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
Andrew in Austin Posted September 5, 2003 Author Posted September 5, 2003 Jaroslav, Looking at the top cover, there are probably a couple of screws under the film winder knob, which is easy to remove. The film reminder may be hiding a another screw and if I had to guess, it comes off by means of a slotted nut, but that would be the first guess of more to come. Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
jaroslav_ilnytskyi Posted September 5, 2003 Posted September 5, 2003 Andrew, Kodak duo 620 RF also got automatic film transport and moving whole lens assembly via helicoidal thread. Film transport module should not be linked to RF anyhow (it might be more tricky to take the cover off, though). Now, in Kodak first I set the infty focus of the lens by ground glass (forget about a RF for a while). One way is to take lens off and to put/take off more paper rings between the lens assembly and the moving plate. Another way - by finding another thread in helicoid. To remove helicoid I set the lens to closest focus, then removed 2 metal pins (rods?) from the back of the camera (when helicoid moves it slides on these, they were fixed by 2 tiny screws each). After that I rotated helicoid on front to free it up completely from the thread (actually, to rotate it I was forced to take off the shutter release lever on the shutter by taking shutter cover and spped selection ring out, then pute these back). After many trials I was able to find the right helicoidal thread to achieve good infty focus (there was a possibility for some fine tuning as well by adjusting the thread itself, held by a couple of screws but that wasn't needed). Put the shutter release back, screw the aligning rods back. Well, in Super Isolette it might be different. Then, after correct infty focus one should adjust the RF. It is absolutely the same as in uncoupled RF cameras, but there is some linkage coming from the lens assembly. Just by viewing you should be able to figure out the screw for vertical alighnment (notmally adjusts the mirror axis vertically) and the one for the horizontal one. Obviously, I am not biasing towards selfrepair, it depends on camera complexity and/or cost, just sharing my experience. I just thought, the design might be similar and you might find my comments useful if you decide to give a try. Best wishes,
Andrew in Austin Posted September 5, 2003 Author Posted September 5, 2003 Jaroslav, I definitely favor being able to doing some camera maintenance, especially cleaning, but I consider the Super Isolette rare enough, to let someone who has the procedure down do the CLA. Your procedure for setting the focus to infinity on the Retina appears to be spot-on even though you call it trial and error. Best Regards - Andrew in Austin, TX
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