Infinity focus, 1/125th shutter, f/22 aperture

I found this old beat up AGFA Isolette (Jsolette) on an online auction for super cheap and grabbed it. I figured it was probably not working and that I'd end up reselling it for parts. When it arrived, it looked pretty awful, the body was aged and the metal parts looked bad. The shutter and focus assembly were completely stuck and nothing worked. However, the bellows was in great shape with no holes and lens assembly folded out without problems. So, I put it in my garage on the workbench with the intention of seeing if there was anything I could do. A week or two later, I cleaned it up the best I could and started tinkering. It turned out that the focus ring was put on incorrectly and once I got that back on right and got focus set it was smooth as butter. Fixing the shutter was just a matter of getting to the gears for the self-timer which were frozen. With a little patience and some lubricant, I freed those, and then suddenly the shutter worked. When I put it back together, all of the shutter speeds worked. The self-timer is still sticky but it worked. So I loaded it with film yesterday and tried shooting all the speeds and focus distances. It worked. I was surprised.

Fotógrafo:
alienmeatsack
Subidas:
2014-08-01
Cámara:
Agfa Isolette
Película:
Arista EDU Ultra 400
Ciudad:
Tulsa, OK
País:
United States
Álbums:
Jsolette Test Roll Post Fix (07-31-2014)

3 Comentarios

  1. davidb
    davidb ·

    Nice results! Well done.

  2. alienmeatsack
    alienmeatsack ·

    Thanks @davidb - I was honestly not expecting it to work or to be able to fix it. And since it was so cheap, I figured it was no big loss if it was not salvageable. The thing that gets me about it is the shutter is too quiet. You press the shutter release and then worry since you didn't really hear anything. I tend to like my shutters loud so they let me know I successfully opened and closed them :D

  3. davidb
    davidb ·

    @alienmeatsack: I understand your point and completely agree with you.
    The beauty is that you can bet on a camera that's apparently worthless, and turn it into something that everybody might look for later on ;).

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