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When we were approached by a photography student from the Wellington Politechnic in 1992 to loan him a camera from our collection, we were naturally curious over this unusual request. It transpired that Erwin Brinkmann could not afford a quality medium format camera and wanted to see how some of our post war cameras would measure up. Having established the reason for his interest, we agreed to give him access to the display item in our museum with the proviso he furnish us with any prints he made from the borrowed equipment. One camera which gave him good results was the one we feature here. It is an Agfa Isolette and was released on the market about 1950/1951. It took twelve pictures on a roll of 120 film through an Agnar 4.5 lens and four speed Vario shutter.
While the print he supplied when he returned the camera looks superb in every regard and could easily be attributed to a more expensive camera, those who know a bit about using a camera of this vintage will appreciate how much extra trouble he has gone to get a result.
First the Isolette had to be put on a tripod to keep it steady. Then the person posing had to be instructed to be motionless for the lengthy exposure which the reduced lighting imposed on the session. Even with these precautions, the lens would have to be opened up and that would have caused depth of field problems and guessing the distance and focus critical. However, taking all these restrictions into consideration, I am sure most will agree that Brinkmann has triumphed and come up with a stunner. The subject was photographed in Hohura, Taranaki.
The Agfa Isolette range of cameras (there were several over a span of serveral years) were moderately priced at about £20. To give you an idea how much this is in terms of today's dollars, £20 would represent about one sixth of the cost of a Leica III in 1951.
And as for Erwin Brinkmann, he completed the course with distinction and ended up in Invercargill for a spell before returning to Holland. If you would like to see more of his New Zealand work, look at his book called "Stewart Island - The Last Refuge", a 1992 publication with text by Neville Peat.
Erwin Brinkmann's Invercargill featured in The New Zealand Journal of Photography, Number 17, November 1994.
Please note that articles by Bill Main introducing these cameras (and more) have been published by The Photographer's Mail, Auckland, New Zealand.
© Copyright by Bill Main |