« Back to blog

Jet 59

Taken on an Agfa Isolette III, a 6x6 medium format folder uncoupled rangefinder from the mid 1950's. I had to rebuild parts of it. The rangefinder was totally frozen, as was the focus. Both were due to the grease hardening up into a stiff green substance. While in there, I cleaned the shutter mechanism. I took the folder along with me to the Dayton Air Show this summer to shoot the first roll. It was while shooting that I discovered that the rangefinder was misaligned. So...I shot it old-style: zone focus. I stopped down to about f11 and metered the scene (trusting the shutter to be accurate). Voila! It worked! After I got back I adjusted the rangefinder easily. An "uncoupled" rangefinder is one that has a non-connected rangefinder on top of the camera. You focus the rangefinder, look at the distance setting, then adjust the lens focus to that number. A little bit extra work, but it allows you to shoot more accurately than without a rangefinder. And if you're a fan of bokeh, you can focus less than 3 feet (1 meter) with this camera as well with more wide-open aperture to get dreamy, out-of-focus backgrounds. A non-rangefinder folder would be harder to control, because you're usually shooting more stopped down (f8-f22) to ensure your subject is in the plane of focus. Therefore, everything from about 6 feet to infinity is in relative focus. These usually make boring shots.

I know this camera needs a lens shade as it's an average triplet lens. I don't know if it's coated or not, probably only one layer, because I can see a little bit of purple dull reflection. All in all though, the f4 85mm Apotar is not too bad. I'm curious to see what it can do once I fit a decent lens shade to it.

Jet_59_2011-0912_agfa_isoiii_p