Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

By Bob Janes

Aeronautical and General Instruments, or AGI, used to have a factory in Purley way. At the time, London’s main airport was just across the road from the factory. During the Second World War AGI made hand-held and stereoscopic aeronautical cameras.

After the war AGI took advantage of restrictions on imports. They produced various ranges of cameras under the brand AGILUX. Among these ranges was the Agimatic (35 mm with interchangeable lenses) and a series of Agifold 120 format bellows cameras.

The Agiflex camera

One of AGILUX’s first cameras was the Agiflex. The Agiflex was a medium format, single lens reflex camera using 120 film. It was a civilian version of the ARL camera that AGI had been producing for the military during the war. The Agiflex was made in the Purley Way factory in Croydon (wherever that is) from 1946.

Rollei TLRs influenced MPP’s design of their Microcord twin lens reflex. Korelle’s Reflex Korelle, produced in Dresden since 1935, was a big influence on AGI, although the Agiflex isn’t a straight copy. There is a write-up of a restoration of an Agiflex on the highly informative Living Vintage Cameras site by Keith South who is familiar with both types and it doesn’t sound like parts are common across both cameras. The resemblance is marked.

AGI made every part of their cameras inside the Purley Way factory. They made the castings, the cogs, the pinions and plates. Everything; even the optics. Nothing was bought in.

AGI refined the Agiflex over the years. A Mk II in 1949 added speeds below 1/25 and flash synchronization. The Mk III was an improved and cosmetically much prettier version released in 1954.

The subject of this article is a Mk 1 Agiflex. Pretty it ain’t.

Agiflex front

The basic layout of the Agiflex is that of a conventional 35mm SLR, but with a huge mirror box and no pentaprism. There is extensive use of leatherette. Even the baseplate and the infills on the winder are (or were originally) covered in leatherette.

Inside the Agiflex

A big door covers the entire camera back. The back is held by a groove on the right side and a sprung clip on the left. When opened the back can be totally detached. It includes a red window behind a slide. The red window is used when loading film. Film is advanced until the number 1 appears in the window, then the automatic film counter is reset. After that frame spacing is taken care of by the camera.

Agiflex back
Camera back in place (L) and removed (R). Positively industrial. Note that you can’t read the serial number of the camera while you have a film loaded.

Inside the Agiflex are chambers for the film (which travels from right to left), a pair of rollers and a large horizontal cloth focal plane shutter. Only visible when the back is off is an engraving saying ‘AGILUX LTD CROYDON ENGLAND’. Also visible is a serial number for the body.

The film spools are standard 120. Film is loaded by pulling down on the knurled, sprung-loaded pinions in the bottom of the camera. The pressure plate in the Agiflex is big enough for 6×7, although no 6×7 versions were made.

Top plate features

The Agiflex film advance is via a two-stroke lever on the left of the top plate. The winder is also supposed to cock the shutter via a wire cable that passes over to the right of the camera to rotate the shutter speed dial. I’ve owned this camera for a good few years and have only just found out that the winder is also supposed to cock the shutter. I’d been setting the shutter manually by rotating the shutter speed dial about 270 degrees clockwise by hand.

Agiflex top viewfinder closed
The Agiflex top-plate. From L-R: Film winder (with missing section of leatherette), film counter and zeroing control (on front edge), folded hood with window and shutter speed dial (with ‘500’ selected and indicating the shutter is not set).

When cocked, the little arrow that points at the selected shutter speed also points to the word ‘SET’ on a plate that surrounds the dial. On releasing the shutter the arrow points at the word ‘FIRED’. Shutter speeds can be set before or after cocking the shutter by lifting the outer collar and rotating.

The cable setting the shutter is a feature copied from the Reflex Korelle. It is a common (maybe even regular) point of failure on both cameras. Cocking by rotating the dial 270 degrees by hand is a workable alternative. This was the way that users were directed to set the shutter if they wanted to make deliberate double exposures.

Viewfinder & hood

A large square leatherette covered plate with a small square window in it covers the top of the Agiflex mirror box. When it is eased up from the rear of the camera a section hinged in the other direction is released and the sides spring open to form the hood. Stowing the hood requires you to fold in the sides against their springs. You then fold the back over the viewing screen, securing down with the top/front of the hood with a little pressure catch. It sounds fiddlier than it is.

Agiflex top
The hood deployed. Note the magnifier, folded down against the rear of the hood in this picture.

When open the hood forms a decent enough shade for the ground glass viewing screen. A fold-out magnifier is available to assist focusing.

When not deployed for focusing, the little magnifier sits over a hole in the rear of the hood. An optical viewfinder is formed by the magnifier and the window in the front of the hood. This can be used as an alternative for framing (but not focusing). It works well enough but is not quite as nice to use as the direct vision sports finders founds on TLR cameras like the Microcord and Rolleiflex.

Agiflex Lens

The Agiflex was a system camera with interchangeable lenses. The standard lens on the Agiflex Mk 1 is an 80 mm f/3.5 coated AGILUX Anastigmat. It has a manual diaphragm with 11 blades. The lenses fit via a three winged bayonet, which ensures that the focusing scale registration mark is always uppermost. Initially there were just two lenses (an 80 mm f/3.5 and a 160 mm f/5.5) plus an extension tube for close-ups. AGI later expanded the range to accommodate lenses of 240 mm and 300 mm. They also added a preset version of the standard 80 mm lens with an f/2.8 maximum aperture. AGI’s expansion of the lens range did require an enlarging of the bayonet, so my early Mk 1 Agiflex cannot take the later lenses.

Agiflex front
The Agiflex from the front. Note the shutter release plunger on the side of the mirror box (the housing of which has lost its leatherette), the bayonet lens release button SW of the lens and film counter reset control by the top edge. Later models had a larger bayonet with the lenses having less space around them on the front of the mirror-box.

Shutter and mirror-box operation

The Agiflex shutter is fired by pressing a plunger on the right side of the mirror box. There is also a fitment for a threaded cable release.

The travel of the plunger is around 5 mm. The first part of the movement lifts the mirror against a spring. The shutter fires at the bottom of the stroke and the shutter speed dial rotates to the ‘FIRED’ position. The mirror then drops back as your thumb or finger comes off the plunger. It isn’t a sophisticated mechanism. It makes the most humble soviet Zenith camera look high-tech.

A lot of time has passed since these cameras were made. It is very possible that standards of manufacture down Purley Way were not as high as they could have been. I think I’m quite lucky that the shutter functions and the curtains seem relatively sound. Big focal plane shutters may well appear slow due to the distance they are travelling. Mine seems very slow.

For the test shots I decided to shoot everything on the top marked speed (1/500). Looking at the shutter at that speed I think it might actually be 1/25. The only way to really know is to expose some film and see how it goes.

Agiflex
“I’m 75 years old you know…”

Pictures!

17 Cameras and a bottle of malt…
Foliage.
Horses in the field.
The neater garden.
Hollow men at Woolwich Arsenal Riverside.
The imaginatively named ‘No 1 Street’ leading to the Arsenal’s Brass Foundry (built 1717).

On the whole, these shots seem quite reasonably exposed – although I was exposing all the time on the assumption that the shutter was 4 stops slow. The right-hand side of some pictures is dark, which would suggest that the second curtain of the shutter was not always fully where it should be. The automatic spacing of frames seems to work well.

Where are they now?

I have a book from 1957 by Focal Press entitled ‘CAMERAS – The Facts’. This guide is aimed at members of the British public interested in purchasing cameras available at that time.

Under ‘Roll film Reflexes’ it leads off with The Agiflex III, described as possessing  ‘High quality workmanship for great accuracy’. The next page features the Hasselblad 500C. That is some company to keep, even if the ordering was determined purely by the alphabet.

The stories of companies in British Manufacturing do not tend to end well. It is a jungle out there. Hostile takeovers, mergers, liquidations, recessions, disputes and cash flow problems all take their toll.

AGI decided to get out of commercial camera production in the 1960s. In the 1980s, They also got out of Croydon, moving to Poole, on the south coast of England.

Happily, they are still going. Still recognisably the same company, even using the same logo. From their website, they appear to be quite successful. They produce lighting, meteorological and navigation instruments in ship and airport environments. They also serve a number of defence contracts around the world.

The bottom line

The Agiflex is not a practical picture taking machine in modern times. But It is a fascinating slice of English Industrial history. It also helps me appreciate more modern photographic equipment.

You will often see people in photographic forums bemoaning that their own country does not have a domestic camera industry. AGI are a good example of why the UK (and France and Italy and the United States) doesn’t have a camera industry any more. Our instrument companies forsook the commercial camera market for government and specialist contracts that paid far better. Some of those companies have even thrived.

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About The Author

By Bob Janes
Retired IT guy. Volunteer stem-cell courier. Interested in education, photography and local history. Lives in Greenwich, SE London, UK.
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Comments

Martin on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 29/06/2021

At first glance at the hollow men I thought the Cypemen had finally turned up.
Interesting camera and read, thanke for sharing that.

kind regards
Martin in Austria
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Peter Roberts on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 29/06/2021

That's some cumbersome beastie, Bob.
It certainly reflects its aero-camera heritage. I can almost imagine it being held out of an open cockpit by a flying-gloved observer.
Nice contrast in the images.
You're probably aware that the old terminal building of Croydon Airport is still there and is now a small museum. It's got a DH Heron on stilts outside. There's also an impressive RAF memorial just along the Purley Way. Both have been on my bucket list since having the misfortune of having to be in the area for work purposes a few years ago. Just got to psych myself up to go again in order to tick them off.
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Bob Janes replied:

Comment posted: 29/06/2021

I wasn't but I am now and am suitably intrigued!

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MIchael Jardine on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 29/06/2021

Good stuff- it takes nice pictures. I'm currently somewhat obsessed with my recently-acquired MPP Micro-technical Mk. 7 , which has a similar back-story of being developed more for govt/ empire than for a what we would now call a market economy. I may borrow your "17 Cameras and a bottle of malt" for the subtitle of the first volume of my memoirs.
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Martin South of France on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 30/06/2021

Thanks for sharing. Great read. I have a couple of Agilux cameras that I inherited many years ago. A few years ago I serviced them, so now all I really need to do is put film in them and shoot them! Thanks for the incentive!
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Bob Janes replied:

Comment posted: 30/06/2021

Great stuff - I've shot with an Agifold, but am still looking for a fully functional Agimatic...

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Dave Ireland on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 24/04/2022

Never really fancied the Agiflex much, but I picked up a couple of Agifolders a decade ago and experimented creating tricolour frames with the older one to make a colour image. It worked too, although not very well.
The later Mk 3 has not been used so far. Oddly built cameras, I thought. Quite solid bodies with flimsy backs that engendered no confidence in their light tight ness.
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Bob Janes replied:

Comment posted: 24/04/2022

I also used an Agifold - my one had an extinction meter (which I never used) and a non-coupled rangefinder. As I think I mentioned in the article - all of the parts (I'm guessing with the exception of lens elements) were made in the Croydon factory. At about the same time as I was using the Agifold I was playing with a Zeiss Nettar (most basic of all the Zeiss 120 folders cameras) and had the tops off both. The difference in quality of machining and finish inside was a bit alarming from an English perspective.

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Christopher Davies on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 24/07/2022

I also have an Agiflex 1 of 1948 vintage in working order although it now only cocks using the speed dial - presumably the failure of the cable that you describe in your piece. Not very good at colour photography as it doesn't have the coated lenses necessary but certainly has a very good quality lens capable of producing high resolution images, Mine is complete with leather case and lens hood. I've had it since the mid eighties.
I also have a Goertz Taro Tenax folding camera in its original box, I believe from twenties or thirties and which Iwould like to know more about. Any info much appreciated
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Simon Gascoigne on Agiflex – The British Medium Format SLR – By Bob Janes

Comment posted: 28/04/2024

I have just acquired TWO Agiflex cameras one of which has an F/3 80mm lens (not 2.8 not 3.5 and not missing the .5) I can find no info on an f/3 80mm lens does anyone have any idea when Agilux released an f/3 80mm lens for the Agiflex…btw the one with the f/3 lens is in working order cocking on the winder and firing on the button the other camera is listed on eBay complete but needing reassembly
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Bob Janes replied:

Comment posted: 28/04/2024

I'd not heard of an f/3.0. is it the small (original) bayonet, or the bigger one? The Agiflex in this article is one of the earlier ones with the smaller bayonet.

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