Samples From the Argoflex TLR

Here's what the contact prints look like from the first roll that came out of my Argoflex TLR. The camera looks like this:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Film was Tri-X shot at 125 ISO w/ a yellow filter, and it was developed in Rodinal at 1:25 dilution for 7 minutes at 68 degrees. The contact prints were made in Dektol and I have no idea how long it took because I had to do it several times. First time I ever made contact prints actually, so that was interesting. In the past, I just made trial prints w/o making contacts.

The lens is an Argus Varex 75 4.5 triplet that is not that bad! It has unusual f stops of 4.5, 6.3, 9, 12.7 and 18, which made metering a little challenging. All in all, a nice $20 Bakelite camera that gives those big, beautiful 6x6 negs. The only downside is the shutter. It's self cocking, and difficult to fire w/o shaking the camera, but practice may help. Also, I may be getting a little shutter bounce at the highest speed of 1/200. Shots taken at that speed were blurry, but the shots you see here were made at 1/100 and they look fine. The camera takes 620 film, but 120 loaded right in, and I let it spool onto the 620 spool that came with it.

Those are nice shots. I'm shocked the Argoflex produces such sharp images. I have one and never used it because I figured it had a dog of a lens--guess I was wrong.

working in a museum with negatives from the 40s and 50s shot with consumer cameras, I've come to have a great deal of respect for those old boxes. Within their limits, they did a very fine job.

And She'll have fun, fun,fun 'til daddy takes the T Bird away.

I'm shocked the Argoflex produces such sharp images

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Depends more on the tolerance of manufacture and the condition of the camera/lens today over brand name. Some brands tend to have more product in tight tolerance than others but....

I did not know that Rodinal could produce such fine grain photos.

Nice shots and very sharp lens.

momus said:

It has unusual f stops of 4.5, 6.3, 9, 12.7 and 18, which made metering a little challenging.

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What an odd setup. Those are each 1/3-stop higher (more closed down) than the standard full-stop progression. Here's a small annotated chart from an old-school utility I use to generate subject-to-distance tables for various flashbulbs. I've left out the flash-specific info, just displaying the fractional f/stops (to 3 significant digits):



Does anyone know why it would be done this way?

:confused:

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

What an odd setup. Those are each 1/3-stop higher (more closed down) than the standard full-stop progression. Here's a small annotated chart from an old-school utility I use to generate subject-to-distance tables for various flashbulbs. I've left out the flash-specific info, just displaying the fractional f/stops (to 3 significant digits):

View attachment 92145

Does anyone know why it would be done this way?

:confused:

Ken

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The so called "standard full-stop progression" is a relatively recent phenomenon.

There is a certain amount of logic behind having your aperture settings start at maximum and then progress one stop at a time.

I figured it would be a dog myself. Woof! The lens is way better than the one I had on an Argus C4, that's for sure. Looking at the flickr examples from these cameras, you wouldn't see much hope, but that's typical of flickr. All I did was was ck the speeds and clean off the focus screen on the top too. Never even bothered to ck the focus, since infinity showed sharp on the top. The bokeh, what there is of it, isn't up to a Rolleicord Triotar, but the IQ is just fine. Just wish that it had a better shutter. I'll see if I can figure out what's up at 1/200, but even if I'm limited to a top speed of 1/100 I'm happy. The camera is going to be primarily used at home for inside shots, but I wanted to shoot the first roll in the sun to ck for light leaks.

Rodinal gives tight grain w/ 120 negs. Big diference from 135mm. Also, my ancient Epson 2450 doesn't have the highest resolution. Rodinal is real sensitive to exposure and agitation, from what I've seen anyway.Tonality isn't what I can get from TD-16/D-76, but the Rodinal was all that was here. Mine is in an old bottle, and looks like brown/blackish syrup. It sits around in a half full bottle w/ lots of air space. When I dumped it after developing I was pretty worried because it came out a very ugly dark purple, but things went pretty well after all. I actually use it at 1:25 even for 135 negs and like it a lot. Maybe it gets better with age!

momus said:

Maybe it gets better with age!

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Like that '57 T-Bird!

These are beautiful.