Tuesday 24 May 2011

Agfa ISO Rapid Camera

This cool little "brick" camera made by the German company Agfa in the 60's, the model shown here it's almost entirely made of plastic apart from the thin metal plate on the base, top of the camera and lens barrel.



The camera is very simple to operate with only the "sunny" and "flash" settings and falls easily into the "point and shoot" category. It has a tripod mount (even though there's no B setting), a mechanism that prevents double exposures and this particular model has the hotshoe for the flash.

Now, in order to use one of those beauty you'll have to find two empty Rapid cassestes made especificaly for the Agfa cameras and in total darkness load you 35mm film of choice. I say two cassetes because the camera has no rewind feature, it basically runs the film from one cartridge to another.





The nicest thing about this camera in my opinion apart from the design, is the 24X24 square format you'll get on standard 35mm film. 

The results below were taken in a bright sunny day with Fuji Across 100 ISO and processed with Rodinal 1:100 dilution 1 hour stand development.



































5 comments:

Pinecone Stew said...

AMAZING photographs !

Have a super week.

Olga said...

In these black and white photos, on different cameras and films that you use, there is depth and a quality that entrances me.

This is Belgium said...

Great blog, just discovered it
greetings from Brussels

Jim said...

Some time ago you commented on a post on my blog about my Rapid camera saying you planned to load yours and shoot with it. I was reminded today of that and came here looking to see if you'd ever done it. Sure enough! Nice work with your Rapid.

Nick said...

hey there!

Nice blog you have here. It's a nice way to learn a bit more about photography.

by coincidence I have a camera just like that one (agfa - iso-rapid I) but i never had the chance to shoot pictures with it.. Now I have this question about how i can load a film in the metal film "thingy"?

thanks in advance!