My first 35: Agfa Silette

Agfa Silette 35mm camera from 1959

On the Maiden near Boulder, Colorado in early fall, 1967. 

After struggling with a Boy-Scout box camera for several years that had been handed down to me from my brother, my parents purchased this 35mm camera for me in the spring of 1960. It was slightly used and cost them around $45.00. It was my one-and-only camera until 1968 when I got my first Nikon.
Back in those days, film manufacturers still offered a wide range of cameras to go with their film products. The German filmmaker, Agfa, marketed several different 35mm cameras labeled “Agfa Silette.” The features varied but all were capable of taking decent color pictures. This particular camera is a Type 6, the last in their viewfinder-only series.

This Agfa Silette is mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. The finder with its true projected bright frame is a surprisingly-sophisticated feature to find on a camera at this price level. But there is no rangefinder. Depth-of-field was of critical importance and I relied on it continuously. The shutter is a Prontor SVS with speeds from 1 to 1/300th of a second. It has M and X sync and a self-timer. It also features the notorious EVS feature which I found to be a nuisance. The lens is a front-cell focusing Color-Apotar, 45mm f2.8 with stops to f22. It appears to use a triplet formula and with careful focusing and exposure, was capable of excellent results. It has a lever film advance but a slow knob rewind. For reasons I cannot understand, the almost concealed frame counter is below the hinged back. It rarely worked. I learned to work with the camera’s limitations and strengths. It was rugged and endured many caving trips and being dropped off a 100 foot climb in its case. It survived that incident with only a small ding added to its top deck.

I took the picture of Ben Billings climbing "The Maiden" near Boulder, Colorado in 1967 minutes before the camera fell out of my grasp and off the side of the cliff.

Today this camera is a tired beast and the shutter no longer wants to do its job. Otherwise, it appears to be in good shape, a testimony to German quality when their photo industry still dominated the camera world.

Grandfather's Camera

Glunz Mod.400 with film pack back, glass plate holders, case and unopened film pack

Taking a picture north of Austin Texas, November 1969

Glunz was a respectable camera manufacturer in the 1920s and 30s located in Hanover, Germany. My step-grandfather, the artist and illustrator Paul L. Gill, bought this folding camera, a Glunz Mod.400, for field work. He used it to take glass slides of scenes that he intended to paint on canvas later. It also took pictures on film using 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 film-packs. In 1969, while stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base, in Austin, Texas, I used it to take black-and-white pictures using Tri-X film packs. I enjoyed playing with it, but reserved my serious work to 35

This camera is typical of a wide range of film-pack cameras that came out of Germany during the pre-war period. The lens is a 120mm f4.5 Meyer-Goerlitz Helioplan Doppel-anastigmat.  It is convertible. The bellows is double extension and the front shifts and rises. The shutter is a dial-set Compur with speeds of 1 to 1/250th of a sec plus B and T. There is no sports finder, but the small reflecting finder is clean and bright and the red spirit level a nice extra touch. Serious focusing would be done with the ground glass back.

The camera is still good condition. The bellows appears to be intact and the controls all work. Most of the black paint is gone from the front upright and the leather has a few “Zeiss bumps,” but otherwise it has survived into its ninth decade in good shape. I still have several glass film holders, the film-pack adaptor, the camera’s case and even a couple of unused Tri-X film packs.

Mother's First Camera

Before my family got bitten by the photography bug, they took pictures the way most Americans in the 1930s and 1940s did: with a folding camera that took roll film. This was my mother's first camera. I do not know how old it is, or when she got it. My guess would be 1936 at the time she went to Mexico. It is an Agfa-Ansco "Everset Traveler." Before World War II these two companies were linked. Ansco was forced away from Agfa after the war.
The camera uses still-available 120 roll film and yields 2 1/4 X 3 3/4 inch size pictures. The lens is an Antar of unknown aperture or focal length. The highly-sophisticated shutter has two speeds: "instant" and "Time." When you shift from instant to time a waterhouse stop moves into place to reduce the aperture. Otherwise there is no aperture control. Nor is there any ability to focus. With luck a user might get decent pictures in bright daylight. Otherwise one has to relie on the latitude of the film one chooses.
 Despite the primitive controls the camera is quite sturdy with a nice rigid bed that snaps into place and stays there. And I love the modish buckram coverage—far more durable than the usual leather.

The snap-on yellow filter is a Wollensak and would give a user a way to reduce exposure somewhat.

The family used this camera into the Mid-1950s. If you can obtain a copy of the August 1955 issue of National Geographic and you read the article on a journey across Canada, you will find a picture of several children standing in front of the parliament buildings in Ottawa. On the right, my brother is standing, holding this same camera.