Stereo Agfa Isolette

This superbly constructed stereo camera is the dedicated and persistant work of George Blake from New Zealand. The starting point for the construction of this camera is a pair of Agfa Isolette 6x6 cameras that date from the 1950's.

The approach taken by George in achieving his goal is quite a bit different from the normal cut-and-paste techniques most often used when creating a stereo camera from two mono cameras. In particular, the finished camera now features:

• A completely new camera body, made from sheet aluminium and various angle extrusions to form the corners and joins between the sections of sheet.
• A new aluminium camera back that fits snugly on to the new body.
• On opening the back of the camera, the two original bodies of the Isolettes can be seen fixed and nestled inside the new aluminium body. The opposing ends of each of the old bodies have of course been removed so the film gate separation can be set at approximatley 65mm. The original film winding and take-up system has been retained.
• The bellows of the old cameras have been removed from the bodies, but left attached to the shutter mechanisms, which have been left unmodified.
• A new mounting arrangement for the two bellows, shutters and lenses has been made in the form of a sub-assembly that screws to the front of the new body. The complete lens/shutter/bellows sub-assembly can be removed easily from the new body. The bellows no longer contract, as the shutter board is fixed in position permanently.
• As part of the shutter sub-assembly, a simple sliding bar has been made to sychronously fire the two independant shutters. Synchronisation can be adjusted by placing packers between the bar and the original shutter levers, or by bending the bar if really necessary. While this is not as good as a coupled-shutter system, the synchronisation appears consistently better than 1/100'th of a second.
• The focussing, aperture, and shutter settings are not coupled between left and right. The apertures may be stopped down to f32.
• A top-plate from one of the original cameras has been placed on top of the new body to provide a view-finder system, and it also visually completes the design as a camera.
• A tripod connector is available, and also provision for cable release of both shutters. Flash is currently derived from one of the flash connectors on either shutter, although this is not a good system as it is too sensitive to timing errors between shutters.
• All the aluminium work was hand finished by using successively finer files and abrasives until smoothly finished.

The overall result is an object of beauty. All credit is due to George Blake, now in his late 70's, for the excellent results achieved.

All photos taken with a Pentax SP1000, fitted with a Kilfitt 40mm f3.5 macro lens, using Ektachrome Elite 100.