Agfa Ventura 66 Deluxe

[scott]

Bao An Temple (Taipei, Taiwan)

this temple is about 170 years old, and is in one of the older northern sections of the city.

This is a busy street in the daytime, with lots of taxis and scooters, but becomes a little quieter in the evening. Many people drop by regularly to pray and burn some incense, and some just to sit on the steps and "shoot the breeze".

It was good and dark when I took the photo...but the sky still looks blue in the image.

This is a fairly typical temple design. The top image is what you see from the street. The bottom image is part of the inner area you see when you walk in under the first roof (that you see in the top image.

I use Photoshop to try and get the colors and contrasts to look natural (or as I recall seeing them), but I think it is hard with long night-time exposures of artificially-lighted scenes such as this.

camera:
Agfa Ventura 66 Deluxe
early 1950s (U.S.-occupied) German-made folding 6x6 camera
Solinar lens (1:4.5 f=85mm)
film: 400 ASA

www.flickr.com/photos/21506490@N00/2071133357/

[John Parry]

Worked well Scott - nice shots

Regards - John

[herron]

Nice pictures, Scott. Sky certainly doesn't look blue on my monitor, but I know what you mean. Folks who don't do a lot long night exposures never really learn how much light and color there is in the sky at night!

You mention a long exposure. How long was it? I assume you had a tripod?

[PeterW]

Very impressive, Scott. The colours are beautiful. I know you say you used PS to adjust them, but particularly in the second shot the slightly warm tone suits the subject well - as it would appear to the eye under artificial tungsten lighting.

I think the Ventura De-Luxe 66 was sold as the Isolette II in Europe. Your pictures show what can be done with a 1950s good quality folder - in the right hands of course. Agfa's four-element Tessar-layout 4.5 Solinar is nowadays very under-rated (f/4.5? Um, not a very big maximum aperture, is it?) yet in its day it was highly regarded. Many people reckoned the 4.5 version for medium format had the edge on the 3.5 version.

These days people seem to be aperture mad. They assume a more expensive larger aperture lens MUST be 'better' than its smaller aperture brothers. But I wonder how often these people actually use their f/1.8 - let alone f/1.2?

PeterW

[scott]

Thanks for the encouragement!

It wasn't a very long exposure, probably around 10 seconds at f11. But unfortunately I don't make anything but mental notes...which I can never find later. At night, I also do more 'bracketing'.

There are a lot of beautiful temples in the city, but this one is one of my favorites. As is typical in Taiwan, a lot of the architectural details are painted with bright colors and in amazing detail. A lot of red and gold, or course, but also greens, blues and cyans. A lot of the ornamentation is colorfully glazed ceramic, including the dragons at each side of the roof, and many other 'animals, vegetables and minerals'.

One of the 'fruity' details at the same temple:



Camera:
Ilford Sportsman (made in Germany in the late 1950s by the Dacora company). Front-cell focusing, three-element Dacora lens. 400 ASA.

[PeterW]

Another excellent shot, Scott, and another example of what can be done with inexpensive German cameras from the 1950s.

There were three main contenders in the field of small fixed lens 35mm cameras in the 1950s, Ilford's Sportsman made by Dacora, Agfa's Silette range and Kodak's solid bodied Retinette. Together they made up the bulk of 35mm cameras used by amateurs in the UK at the time. If you look at readers pictures from Amateur Photographer around this time you find dozens of examples taken with them. At one time, Ilford claimed to have over 50% of the UK 35mm market with its Sportsman range.

Of the three, my favourite is Agfa's Sillette, particularly the top range Super Sillette with rangefinder and a Soligon lens, but they were all what used to be described as 'honest value' cameras, simple, well made and reliable. They can be picked up very cheaply nowadays, and seldom want more than a CLA of the leaf shutter to bring them back into excellent picture-takers.

Yes, you had to guesstimate the exposure, or use a hand-held meter, and on the non-rangefinder models you had to estimate and set the distance, or use a small pocket rangefinder in the accessory shoe. But these were the sort of things every photographer had to learn in those days before automation took over and did the lot for you.

I appreciate the convenience of modern AE and AF cameras and the low running costs of digital, but photography seems in retrospect to have been more leisurely and possibly more fun back then. I think you got a better sense of achievement in taking a good picture. Or perhaps I'm just being nostalgic.

There are a pieces on the Sportsman and the Sillette ranges on my website www.peterwallage.com and one day I'll add a piece on the solid-bodied Retinettes.
Click on 'My Cameras' and follow the links.

PeterW

[scott]

Thanks for the link, Peter. I took a look, and have already found some interesting info there.

I admit that I also feel I have accomplished something when (despite a lot of badly-focused and badly-exposed frames) I do manage to get a nice image with my 50s-era cameras, especially as none of the cameras I have were considered anything more than amateur-quality equipment at the time.

But then I have always been the type that was just as interested in the process as in the result --like most of us here, I'm sure. I always wanted to take things apart to see how they worked, and to see every step in the whole process. I guess I also learned from my father and grandfather not to be too afraid of pulling something apart to try and fix it.

Besides the Ventura and the Sportsman, the other German-made cameras I have (and use now and then) are the Arette 1D (Xenar), Welti 1C (CZJ Tessar), Vito 2 (Skopar), Regula RM (aka Cita, CJZ Tessar), Super Frankarette (Xenar), and a Karomat 36 (Xenon).

Right now my favorite is the Karomat. I have also been amazed at the sharp photos I have gotten with the Welti and the Vito 2.

I'd love to try a Solagon or a Heligon lens, but those are already hard to find in my price-range.

[PeterW]

Scott,

I agree with what you say about the Karomat 36, AKA Karat 36. I have one, with a Xenar not Xenon lens, and it's a nice camera to use if you except the small viewfinder, but they were usual in the 1950s. At least, it was a nice camera to use but about a year ago something went a but haywire with the interlink mechanism and the shutter doesn't cock. Another of those 'round tuit' jobs.

Somewhat strangely I don't have any of the other cameras you mention. I had an Arette, but it was a very basic bottom of the range version with, I think, an Arettar lens (don't know who made it) but I didn't rate the lens very highly. When another amateur photog offered to swap an early folding Retina for it I accepted. I don't recall having heard of an Arette with a Xenar lens.

Any camera from the 1950s available new in the UK was strictly amateur because until the early 1960s there were import restrictions on cameras over a certain price (I can't now remember the price), and if you went to Germany to buy a Leica or Rolleiflex you paid 100% import duty (on Customs & Excise estimated value) plus 30% Purchase Tax on top of thet, so it was just uneconomical.

All the top quality German cameras in dealers were pre-war models, often rebuilt and guaranteed by the best dealers, but they were very expensive. Only magazines, newspapers and accredited freelance professionals could buy new German cameras without import restrictions, and they usually went for things like Rolleis. Resale by them was stricyly controlled. 35mm hadn't yet caught on with pros because magazine and newspaper darkrooms, and their printers, were still basically pre-war and weren't set up to handle them.

PeterW