I said I would make a camera sale post next, but this was in my draft folder and they would have been included in the sale. Luckily for me, they sold before I even posted this. They sold within 10 minutes of putting them on ebay. I think because I included a set of cartidges.

Anyway, I put these two camera together as I bought them at the same time and used them at the same time, with the same film. I bought them for a specific reason, the Welta Penti. I didn’t have enough cartridges to actually use it and found it was cheaper to buy these two cameras with a cartridge inside, than a cartridge by itself. So that is what I did.

Let’s start with the Iso Rapid IF which was produced around 1965. You can find more technical details at this detailed site. Basically, you can gather most of the information by looking at the camera.

There are 3 apertures to chose from f8, f11, f16 and two shutter speeds. The sunny symbol is 1/80th and the flash symbol is 1/40th. There is a built in flash reflector, but no actual bulb which has to be fitted separately. This one has a fixed focus lens.

As I mentioned it takes the Agfa rapid cassettes which has or should be to be loaded with 16 frames as the counter on the top counts down from that number. Once the counter gets to 1 the shutter stops working and the winder does not cock the shutter, it justs rewinds the film fully into the takeup spool. The counter resets when the door is opened. I chose not to rewind very much beyond 1 as I wanted a leader of film poking out so I could retreive it easier.

I loaded two cartridges with one split roll of Ilford Pan 400, one for each camera. I took them both to places around Hereford and got to shooting. Here are all the results from this camera

I thought the camera and film did very well, especially in the darkness of the cathedral. There are some scratches which I am not sure is from the cartridges or camera.

And this is the Isomat Rapid which was produced around the same time as the previous camera, again around 1965.

This one has a zone focusing system, but everything else is automatic. The selenium cell adjusts the aperture between f4.5 and f16 based on the light available. The shutter speed is fixed at 1/70th. There is an indicator inside the viewfinder, an orange light which turns to green if there is enough light. To be honest it was so small I barely noticed it and didn’t see if it ever turned green.

As like the first camera, the film counter on this one counted down from 16. The shutter button did not work without film loaded and it stopped working once the film had finished. There is a selector on the side to choose an aperture to go with a hotshoe mounted flash. I did not use that and left the camera on A.

Here are some of the results from this half of the film, all taken in Ledbury which is a marvellous place and I highly recommend a visit.

The results are pretty much like the previous camera, but the scratches are much more pronounced. I think these were caused by the camera as I can feel a raised patch inside in the same place.

Well, that was interesting. These cameras are so cheap to find, they can be fun to play with. I bought these for a specific reason, the cartridges. I have no intention of using them again when I have the Penti to use. Therefore I added these to the Pentax/Car Project, not that they will add much to the funds, but everything is helpful.

Talking of the car, it turned out the issues with the car were the cheapest of the possible outcomes, a broken sensor. So panic over about that…for now, you never know. As for the Pentax 17, a few people have posted comments or written to me about how I need to think a bit more about the Project 17. And I have, even though I would really like one, I have quite a few half-frame cameras including the Konica auto-reflex, the Kodak H35N, and the Olympus Pen FT. So it really is superfluous to my needs. I still need to sell cameras as I have run out of space to store the ones I have. But the money raised will go towards new projects such as building a portable pinhole/darkroom box for a road trip to Skye. Or making a sheep photo book, I like looking sheep in fields apparently. I have enjoyed the Dad project and the Me project this year, so I want to do more things like that instead of buying every new camera that is released.

OH, and the school year has finally finished!!!!!