Agfa Box 44

Agfa Box44 - With case and film spools.  The wooden spool came with the camera and  is marked Agfa.
Circa 1932

My Mother in law, knowing my interest in photography, picked up an old Agfa Box 44 camera from a market in Austria and brought it home. It is a neat little camera.  It has a fixed aperture, meniscus lens and 2 shutter speeds. Momentary marked as a dot and bulb, marked as a dash.  The camera used 120 film and make a 6cm x 9cm negative.  I took everything apart and cleaned it all.  The camera looks as though it has seen little use.  It even had an old wood film spool in it.

Agfa Box44 - Camera opened for reloading
This camera makes a 6cm x 9cm negative on 120 roll film.  8 shots per roll.

To use the camera you need to load 120 film by removing the back and pulling out the insert. You just place the new film in the holder and wrap it around the backside and attach it to the take up spool. you then place the insert back inside the camera box. Make sure that the take up spool is on the same side as the winder.  Place the back cover on and wind the film until the number "1" shows in the little red window.

Agfa Box44 - Insert holds the film and the lens.  the hole is where the winder attaches to the film spool.

The lens is build into the tube at the front of the insert and the shutter sits in front of that. To take a picture you aim the camera with a little viewing window.  There are Two. One for portrait and One for landscape.
the speed lever has 2 positions a dash for bulb and a dot for quick.  I really have no idea how fast the shutter is or what the aperture is set at.  The only adjustment you really have is the film ASA.

Agfa Box44 - looking at two film spools through the viewing window. also shown are the shutter selector, shutter switch and the winding knob.

Agfa Box44 - Front of camera open showing shutter open in bulb position.

 This first photo was taken of some trees at the side of the road in the country near my fathers home.
The EV value of this sceen is about 14  The film is Ilford FP4 developed for 125ISO.
The photo is slightly over exposed.

Trees
Agfa Box44 - Ilford FP4 6x9 

The second photo is of an old truck on the back of my fathers property the exposure value is slightly less at 13.4 and the mid tones are a lot more apparent.

Old Truck
Agfa Box44 - Ilford FP4 6x9 

I would hazard a guess from these photos that the camera is close to f 16 at 1/60sec.

ND Filter Magic

I have, in my bag of camera equipment a filter called an ND8.  This is a Neutral Density filter. its sole purpose is to reduce the amount of light entering the lens.  I have spent so much time trying to get more or better light that using this filter almost seems counter intuitive. That is until you want a slower shutter speed on a sunny day in order to capture a photo with motion blur.  In the first photo I was in the parking lot at my office trying to capture a vehicle on the highway while panning. even at f22 i was still getting a fairly sharp background. adding the ND filter to the lens allowed me to achieve this with relative ease.

The moving water picture which follows was quite a challenge.  I didn't have a tripod with me and it was really bright.  I had the ND filter and a Polarizer in my 28-135 lens.  I didn't have to worry about vignetting as I was using a 1.6 crop factor camera.  The setting were f22, 2 second exposure, 100asa.  I managed to brace the camera against a tree while using the self timer to reduce shake.

Neither one of these shots would have been possible without the use of the ND8 filter. I am defiantly a fan of  the ND filter. If you want to get creative with your outdoor photography you really need one of these.

Depth of field

I love this Picture.  The really narrow depth of field makes the flower seep to pop off of the photo almost like 3D  I took this with my Canon XTI and 28-135 lens.

F-stop.  f/8
Speed.  1/250 sec.
ISO.     100
Focal Length.  135mm
Subject Distance 400mm

The Minimum focal distance for this lens is published at 500mm.  I am able to get focus confirmation at 400mm with my copy.  I wonder if other 28-135 Lenses are the same. I

This photo was shot in Raw.  Cropped square and converted to Jpeg.  no other editing was done.

A Photo of Mine.

I took this photo in the early evening just before the sun set.
Photo Specifics:
Camera: Canon XTI
Lens:  Canon 28-135
F-stop:  f/5.6
Exposure time: 1/30 sec.
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 135mm
Subject Distance: 710mm

I shot this Photo in RAW and then processed it in DXO.
After setting the color to Black & White i used the Film Pack Plug in to simulate Ilford HP4.
I applied a yellow filter to lighten the flower then added a vignette to darken the other flowers.

I really liked this photo before I played with it but the black and white version has a nice quality.
I plan on going back to the garden where I shot this with my Elan 7 and shooting a similar photo on film.

My goal is to try and match this as close as I can in the darkroom using analog techniques.  this may take a while as family life is very busy right now.

The original Photo, unedited.