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.

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.