Agfa Isolette - Good news...?

I think I've fixed it. Or, rather, it's fixed itself. Someone on Flickr kindly reminded me that the shutter is supposed to stay cocked until the film is wound on - which my Isolette so far hasn't bothered with. So I wound the winderer, et voila! Shutter quite happily fires once more.

So it now appears that what I thought was "broken" is apparently "mysterious & spontaneous correct function".

Cameras!

This does put me in mind that the Isolette might not be the most reliable of beasts in future - so I might see if I can get someone (perhaps Walchs in Hobarts) to at least give it a once-over. It is, after all, older than my dad - it's probably well overdue for a service of some kind.

Weekly Vintage Image: 10

Happy young chap in my great grandparents' garden - where all important moments in time are captured.

I would love to know what kind of camera was used. All I know is that my great grandfather was the photographer most of the time. I'm guessing it was probably a fairly basic 35mm camera of some kind (doesn't seem to be a lot of control over exposure or focus), however as both my great grandparents died over 20 years ago, my curiousity will just have to go unsatisfied...

Good news - LOMO Sokol 2

Finally arrived yesterday. When I get a bit of time, I'll do a bit of a write-up on this fabulous brick.

Bad News - Agfa Isolette

My beloved Agfa Isolette II is "buggered" - I think. The shutter cocks, but stays cocked even after much coaxing, tapping, shaking, and (inevitably) shouting. It just sits there waiting for something to happen, but refuses to tell me what I should be doing.

I'm not sure if this is a common problem or not. If I'm feeling plucky one day, I might take it apart (plenty of guides online for doing this) and see if I can fluke a fix.

It'll be a damn shame if it's permanently broken. I quite like how compact it is for a 120 camera, the photos I've taken with it came out amazingly well, and it looks awesome. But it is about 55 years old, and considering it was $25AU in a junk shop, it's amazing it even still worked.

Here's hoping it's only a hiccup on an otherwise uninterrupted long-term photographic partnership.

Weekly Vintage Image: 9

This rather blurry image is the Cenotaph/War Memorial in Burnie's City Park. The flag flying beside it appears to be the Union Jack - anyone have any thoughts why this & not the Australian flag?

some recent (and not so recent) photos...

I found a roll of film behind the chest of drawers in the hallway. Turns out it included a couple of photos (bottom two) from our portrait session with our wedding photographer. This roll was taken using the Vilia, which I haven't had much time for recently, unfortunately.

The other photos (top three) are from a recent BBQ at Stu & Sam's house, which involved the playing of Wii...

Weekly Vintage Image: 8

Following on from last week's creepy uniformed children, is another uniformed child (my uncle?) - although this one just looks a bit surly.

Another child seems to have popped up in frame behind the fence, however it's difficult at this stage to tell whether he/she/it is also uniformed...

Sokol 2

Yay! On the way (not the one from the image, but you get the drift), thanks to anonymous auction site.

I like the cut of it's jib. Automatic exposure probably requires some weird kind of battery, but that's why folks invented sunny-16...

Weekly Vintage Image: 7

A little bit Village of the Damned, no? No idea who these possibly-evil cherubic sailor children are, but an astute guess whould be they're relatives of some sort.