A couple of years ago I came into possession of a Kodak pocket camera, something I’ve written about on this blog previously. Once upon a time folding cameras were the portable everyman camera that were easy to use given their very limited features. Eventually they fell out of favour to the fixed body cameras we are more familiar with today, but they continued to be popular and became more advanced up until the 1950s. Like many folders my Kodak pocket camera had some major foibles due to age and its hand-built nature and these limitations had really started to bug me. I’d come around to shooting 6x9 medium format again, but I wanted a camera that I could actually shoot handheld. At one point I did consider a Fuji GW690, an excellent fixed lens camera that is gaining in popularity. However ultimately it proved too bulky and expensive. Enter the Agfa Record iii.

Why did I buy this camera?

The earlier days of photography saw a much greater range of camera manufacturers, often copying each other, helped by the simple mechanics of what they were making. As mentioned, I wanted a folding camera I could handhold and that meant shutter speeds going up to at least 1/250s, a lens that didn’t require shooting at F22 to get both acceptable image quality and a useable depth of field and critically a rangefinder not just a viewfinder. I looked at the Zeiss Super Ikonta but ultimately chose the Agfa Record iii as I preferred the design of the top plate and the fact that the rangefinder doesn’t fold out. Less to go wrong in my view. It’s worth mentioning though that the rangefinder on the Agfa is uncoupled (compared to the Zeiss which is coupled), meaning you have to dial focus onto the lens separately.

I then had to choose which lens model I wanted, the cheaper Apotar or the more expensive and much rare Solinar (there was also an even cheaper Agnar lens for the lower tier Record and Record ii cameras). The Apotar is a triplet design whereas the Solinar is a Tessar design similar to that of the Zeiss. After seeing a test of the two lens designs on the Isolette, the 6x6 equivalent, and an in depth image review of the Solinar, I decided to be patient and wait for a camera with the better lens. Ultimately, I paid quite a bit to buy a mint condition one from France with ‘new’ bellows. A bold decision but sometimes it’s just better to get the best you can afford.

The Camera

So what is the feature set of this camera? The lens is a 105mm F4.5 (roughly equivalent to 50mm in 35mm terms) with the apertures stopping down all the way to F32. Cheaper models had a Prontor SV shutter that tapped out at 1/250s, but this top end model had a better Synchro Compur shutter that goes all the way to 1/500s. It’s very similar to that found on a large format camera lens of the same era, it even requires manually cocking before each shot. There is a B mode but surprisingly no T mode which makes a cable release with a locking mechanism absolutely essentially for long exposures. A cold shoe sits on top of the camera and flash is synched at all speeds with a traditional sync cable. It has a shutter button on the camera body itself and next to that is large dial to calculate your depth of field based on your chosen aperture when focusing. That comes in really handy, especially when setting up a shot.

However, all cameras from this era have at least one strange quirk and for this camera it is the double exposure mechanism. Once you take a shot you have to wind on the film to reset the mechanism before you can fire again. But this where the camera really shows it’s age. While at first glance it behaves like a modern camera all the controls including the shutter release are actually on the lens. The shutter release button on the body is in fact an awkward set of levers that triggers the shutter lever on the lens, and this is where problems can occur.

The double exposure lock only triggers when the body release is pressed but it is possible to trigger it without firing the shutter if you press too hard while also having forgotten to manually cock the shutter on the lens itself. If this occurs you either have to wind on and lose the shot (painful and expensive when you only get eight shots on a roll) or even more awkwardly take the shot using the lens release. This is actually the one area where the cheaper Record iii with the Pronto SV shutter is actually better. Not only does the cheaper shutter have a longer lens release lever but it also has a screw mount for a cable release directly on the lens as well as the body release. This means you can completely bypass the double exposure mechanism. This is completely missing on the higher end Synchro-Compur shutter and it is a real mystery as to why. You can see if the system has been triggered by observing the small dot behind the body release. If it’s red you need to wind on and if it’s white you are ready to take another shot.

If you want to mount the camera on the tripod, then you need not worry about adapters as it has a standard ¼-20 socket for landscape orientation but unlike by Kodak pocket camera there is not a second mounting socket for shooting in portrait. You’ll have to rotate the camera on your ball head to do that, though it does have a small flick out kick stand for this orientation which can be handy if you can rest the camera on a flat surface. However I have found that some modern mounting plates don’t sit flush with this camera meaning you need a bit an extra material like tape in order to properly secure it.

Sadly, the lens doesn’t have any filter threads for modern screw-in filters. As with many cameras from that era they instead use push on filters, in this case 37mm, which are still possible to come by second hand, though I don’t own any. There also people online who have cut up old filters and glued them to a modern filter adapter ring to allow you to use screw-on filters. Again, it’s not something I have used but it is something I am considering for the future.

Shooting with the Agfa Record iii

With that all said and done, what is it like to actually shoot with this camera? First of all the fit and finish is good, it doesn’t feel cheap and nasty in the hand. However, what I’ve learned is that is takes a while to adjust to the balance of the unfolded camera in the hand. With a good enough technique, you can shoot all the way down to 1/25s and get sharp results but with bad technique you can actually ruin shots at 1/100s with camera shake.

Folding cameras are not very heavy which means there is a lack on inertia to absorb the wobbles in your hand. What weight there is, is also not well balanced so when you push the body release I’ve found it’s very easy to tip the whole camera forward slightly which introduces shake. To overcome this, simply brace the camera by pressing it into your face while you look through the viewfinder, before gently pushing the shutter button. The viewfinder which also double as the rangefinder is large, clear and bright for a camera of this age, though naturally there have been times when I’ve dialled in the focus, only to then release I forgot to transfer that reading onto the lens itself, giving me an out of focus image. Regular practice will quickly iron out these issues.  

Being a rangefinder camera you have to deal with the problem of parallax, the fact that what you see through the viewfinder and what the camera sees does not always match. Not an issue at infinity but the closer you are to your subject the worse the error gets. To remedy this, you either aim the camera slightly higher up when shooting in landscape or more to the left when shooting in portrait. However, I’ve always found I’ve needed relatively more correction when shooting in portrait mode which I imagine is to do with the design of the viewfinder. This is something you simply have to get used to with trial and error for each individual camera.

To see your progression on the roll you look through the orange window on the back of the camera once you flip the lever up for the internal cover. However, I’ve learned the hard way that even with the cover in place the camera still suffers from small light leaks in direct sunlight. An external cover would have prevented this. Instead, I used a small piece of black electrical tape that I simply lift up before I wind on. I’m beginning to wonder whether the orange colour of the window is due to early films being orthochromatic, having a low sensitivity to red. Between that and the slow ISO speeds of the time, light leaks wouldn’t have been an issue. I’ve found it’s only with films of ISO 200 or higher that I run into issues.

My camera also has an individual quirk that the image area is not exactly 6x9. I believe this is due to the replacement bellows installed by the previous owner. While they are of a higher quality compared to the originals (real leather as opposed to cheaper leatherette), they protrude slightly too far on one side internally to block a small part of the exposure. Though this is much preferable to having an old disintegrating set of leaky bellows.

Finally, just bear in mind that the film is loaded upside in the camera which can be a bit confusing when looking at the frame numbers during scanning. Just another quirk of an old camera you’ll have to get used to.

Image Quality

At F11 – F22 the image quality is excellent to the point it even holds up favourably in comparison to my Bronica SQ-A, a camera several decades newer with much more modern glass. However, below F11 and especially below F8.0 the image quality can be disappointing. I find if I am shooting a subject up close in the centre of the frame the image quality wide open is good but switch to a subject at infinity and it completely falls apart. Yes you can argue that is simply a result of it being an old camera but given you are shooting such a large piece of film and you only have eight shots on a roll, it’s hard to justify in the modern era given the today’s cost of film. Here is where the Fuji GW690 would have shined.

However, using higher ISO films on a bright day which allowed me to shoot at F11 or F16, I have gotten some really good results handheld and given that large piece of film there isn’t a great deal of grain, especially compared to 35mm. Films like Ilford HP5+ or Kodak Tri-X really excel here and if you want to use something with a finer grain you can put the camera on a tripod and get truly excellent image quality stopped down, which let’s be honest, is what you will almost certainly be doing for landscape or cityscape photography. As ever it’s important to have the right expectations.  

Conclusion

I have very mixed emotions about this camera, but I think that comes down to my initial expectations of what I wanted it for, handheld shooting. Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite lived up to what I wanted it to be, even with the better Solinar lens, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good camera. I think of all the cameras I’ve owned; this has been the trickiest to master, but there is also great fun to be had in doing that. I don’t regret paying extra for the Solinar, I just need to spend more time working out how to get the most out of it. But for most people getting the cheaper Apotar is the way to go, stopped down at F11 and beyond the difference in image quality is not that great and being able to completely bypass the double exposure mechanism will not only save a few headaches but also give you the option to do double exposures if that’s something you want to experiment with.

Admittedly we don’t buy old film cameras to take the sharpest possible images in the world, but just bear in mind that every wasted frame with this camera isn’t cheap. If you just want a more point and shoot camera then pick up something else, whether that’s 35mm or a smaller medium format like 6x4.5. But if you fancy a bit of a challenge or sick to death of carrying heavy gear when photographing landscapes, then perhaps this is the camera for you.

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