A reprise of the Agfa Iso-Rapid 1F

The responses I received to my first article about this little camera made me feel a little guilty. It has clearly played a significant part in many people’s journey into photography and has evoked many good memories.

So I felt it deserved a better crack of the whip than I had given it and I asked for the loan of the camera and cassettes from my grandson again, resolving to take care to avoid the problems I had experienced. In particular, the cassette did not see daylight once loaded and went straight into the camera before the light was turned on and the exposed cassette came out of the camera in the changing bag as I loaded the developing tank.

As well as the fogging first time around, the frames least affected appeared to be overexposed so I assumed that the shutter was running slow. I felt the two shutter speeds should be taken to be closer to 1/25 and 1/50 rather than the suggested 1/40 and 1/80. As a further precaution I stand processed the length of Rollei Retro 80S I had loaded to even out development.

Using the camera again reminded me that it is very nice to handle, the finder being easy to use even wearing glasses. The shutter release in particular is smooth and positive and the finder easy to use even wearing glasses. Wind on is also smooth and effortless while the prismatic patterned finish to the body gives a very secure grip.

Once again I used my Handcross lens hood filter holder for some of the shots.

Results

A little over 3mil of of my very last drops of R09/Rodinal went into 300mil or so of water and the film semi stand developed for 60 minutes at 20ºC. No trace of the fogging from weakened light trapping thanks to my precautions but there was more base fog than I expected yet some very useable negatives appeared. Digitising was less problematic too with less dense negs so my assumptions as to shutter speeds must have been close but still overexposing a little I would say.

Conclusion

Overall, I am impressed by these results. The rejects were either the result of my mistakes or because I expected more than the camera could handle, flare in particular. I also like the square format being a long time TLR user.

So I can see that the better quality models would produce impressive results and even these simpler versions can turn out some good results. My thanks to Harry for the loan of the camera again so that I could salve my conscience.

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