Shooting with a 90 year old Zeiss Icon camera 

The "Mercedes" Logo ist the Logo of the shutter manufacturer. It shows a shutter with three shutter blades mid opening, and the letters AGC - Alfred Gauthier Calmbach (Calmbach beeing a town in the Black Forrest, south west Germany). Klio is the Name of the shutter.

In order to obtain 16 frames, you need to advance the film so that the frame number appears in the window on the opposite side to the film advance knob, take a shot then advance the film until the same frame number appears in the second window. Back in the 1930’s, backing paper was only marked for 6 X 9 and 6 X 6. The Novar lens is a triplet, but it should be reasonably sharp from around f8. Yours has an uncoated lens, so contrast will never be brilliant. I have used similar cameras and obtained excellent results! There’s an iOS app called “filmlab”, which works well with medium format negatives. I can email you some examples, including shots taken by my grandparents, in the 1930’s, on a 6 X 9 Zeiss Ikonta. He had an Austin 7 at the time!

I love your narration as it engaging and easy to follow so thank you.

An interesting video. Thank you. I used to go out and about taking pictures a lot. But not so much recently. The scaffolding shot was my favourite.

Analog is so refreshing Matt 😀 Non digital cameras, along with vinyl records and real buttons on car dashboards are where it’s at! 😉👍

Wonderful experimenting.

I used to love photography in my youth early 80s , I remember getting a Zenith Em for Christmas, and the light meter was built into the top of the camera body and not through the lens . It took some fantastic pictures of my dads mk4 cortina and Astra Gte mk1

Nice to see Illford film too :) My dad used it all of the time back in the day for fashion photography

I have an Ikonta 523/2 with Novar f/3.5 lens, from about 1950, shooting 6x9. I bought it about 18 months ago from a person with a large collection of such folding cameras. I paid about $60 USD, which was less than Ebay prices. The triplet Novar lens is pretty sharp in the center but loses quite a bit toward the edges, even at f/8 or f/11. Mine has the Compur shutter with max speed of 1/250, which is fine for most film applications. I have gotten best results using a tripod and cable release. It's a very deliberate camera to shoot. I usually use my dedicated spotmeter and an accessory rangefinder for focusing. It gets me better results, considering that I have 8 shots of 6x9 per roll.

BTW I liked that theme you had photographing modern stuff with this old camera, it gives a really nice estranged effect!

I do have Zeiss Ikon Nettar from 1933 and this camera doesn't have any problem with focusing, when you metering the distance all turns out really good.

Nice video,thanks sir, love from India

Very good video, thanks for this! If you hadn't done the in situ footage I'd have said that the bridge in question was actually from the 1950s!

Hi Matt, I had a Nettar, which I traded up to an Ikonta; it has a much sharper 4 element Tessar lens. I also shoot a Super Ikonta, which adds a built in rangefinder, greatly simplifying the focus. Your biggest problem seems to be being off focus, so you might consider buying a shoe mounted, uncoupled rangefinder reading in feet, which are generally available for about 20 quid. For winding, you need to bring the number 1 to the first window, then wind on until 1 appears in the second window, and you'll get the appropriate number of exposures. As you noted, a number of frames seem overexposed - again, I'll suggest eBay, where you can often pick up a solid Gossen meter at a low price. I have five of them, and I keep one in the bag for each of the film cameras I use most often. I also think your lens would benefit from cleaning of the rear surface of the front element - it's fairly easy to access and is the most common location for lens "Schmutz". I love your compositions and you're on the right track with prefocusing for street scenes and then waiting for the subject to enter the scene. It was good enough for Henri Cartier Bresson, and it still works today. Keep on experimenting - medium format folding cameras are the great undiscovered treasure of the photographic world and have not become priced out of the average shooter's budget --- yet. Best wishes from the US. Andy

The shot of the bridge looked really nice, the softness of the others do have a charm to them that you just don't see in cameras today. I like the framing of the railing and the bridge, its the kinda thing you might see in a 1940s/50s magazine showing a new hydro dam. It does look an interesting project and i would love to see some more photos from it. Street photography might be good at like a bus stop or a supermarket where people are standing in line so less movement? Great video as always

That was some old memories there and the old market in maidstone they also did a toy fair there back in the day . Now that was the top camera back in the day .

Classic cars and the old rootes garage would be interesting. Cheers Matt, excellent vid!! 👍👍

What a beautiful old camera..

AGC logo is the subcontracted manufacturer of the shutter. German company called Alfred Gauthier.

Hello , excellent video for fellow camera enthusiasts and petrolheads,enjoying these videos :)

Nice video, appreciate you featuring such cool old cameras. One correction: you mentioned it's a rangefinder, but looks to be zone focus with just an approximate finder for framing. Cheers.

Lovely Jubbly, to have a photographic eye is an amazing thing to have, you either have it or you don't.

Hey Matt good vid mate admire your determination. Fine bridge pic. I recently bought an old ferania falco 2 folder looks all kinds of cool the first shoot in mono on my chan if interested was pretty encouraging 2nd shoot is on Ektar just awaiting that coming back from the lab really keen to master the folder. The super iconta and the Bessas look like a step up. Good work mate new sub for ya.

Speaking as a failed armature photographer I really enjoyed that video. Nice one.

Very interested in that Minolta Movie hardcase's contents!~ Looks like the one that came with my Minolta Master Series-8 8100 video 8 camcorder [circa 1987]. cheers from a fellow P71 owner in the US!

Only a few mins into your video, I have the exact camera and love it. Alas mine I’ve used quite a lot and it’s beginning to have issues. Regarding the Klio, I believe that is the shutter manufacturer. As others have mentioned the frames this camera takes are 6x4.5 so you get 16 shots but they are oriented opposite to conventional 35mm cameras with portrait being the default when the cameras is held landscape.

I couldn't care less about old cameras but I'm enthralled 😂, should have told us about your other channel before

Nice and interesting video, Matt! AGC is Alfred Gauthier from Calmbach, a German company who made the shutters.

I've got some old cameras as well that after some tinkering all mechanically work, they are: Polaroid SuperColour 635 In box An in box German Kodak AG 7000 Stutgart 60or Instamatic 355-X (A treasure with mechanical bulbs, some in box, some used, kept them since they're very hard to find) Hanimex "35me" From Australia From my understanding these have been family owned cameras on my dads side where that side has always lived in Australia, the Hanimex model is from there and i have seen many pictures on it from family photos which take surprisingly nice picutres. the German Kodak is still a mystery but was likely used even earlier down the family, i do love cameras for their personality, some may be dull or blurry or downright terrible, but the way they can just capture a moment of time and provide a really nostalgic look through the picture makes me want to collect more, if i had a way of getting the pictures off the film i would take a lot of pictures with these over a good camera, you don't need a fancy one to capture a moment to hold close to show to future family and others for years to come!

Not a twisted Mercedes Benz. AGC stands for August Gauthier Calmbach. Calmbach is a town in Germany

I think the symbol on the front represented the companies which merged to form the Zeiss-Ikon combine. My father had an Ica which was one of your camera's predecessors and which he bought new in the '20s. It had one of those prismatic viewfinders which you peered down into and when I tried it 30 years later I thought it was dreadful! In 1937 I hope I would have gone 35mm and, if I couldn't run to a Leica or Contax, I would have wanted a Kodak Retina, a camera I have always had a high regard for.

I have almost the exact same camera IKonta 520/16 but f3.5 it was my aunts and was bought in Sloman & Pettitt in YES Maidstone where it still lives with me.

Very interesting as I'm no expert, how do you focus it?

IMHO the lens should do a bit better than that. While it's only triplet, and uncoated as it's a pre war version, it should be okayish from f/11 onwards. There seems to be more "flare" than I would expect. Have you checked (T-setting, looking through the lens) if there is grime on the inside surfaces? A small light leak in the bellows could also be a culprit. I usually check for those in a dark room, shining a small LED flashlight into the inside of the bellows. I own the same model made in the 50s (same lens but coated) will do quite nice and sharp pictures if stopped down a bit.

I'm sure you are aware of this, But what you have is a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520 or 521, cca 1938 with a triplet lens. It's a 4.5x6 format, you should get 16 frames per roll. The two windows are for other formats, 6x6, most likely 6x9 ( I don't know why they used it). I have two of them, one has a double window on the bottom. one has a single on top (correct one). How you advance, there is a step by step somewhere on youtube. But If I remember correctly, you wind an arrow on the left window, that should be your first, then for the second picture, you have No.1 in the right window. Then No.1 in the left window, third pic No2. in the right window, and so on...look it up on RU-vid. If you would like to see pics, I can provide some with an empty backing paper simulation as a roll of film. Oh, and that windows you are looking through to compose, its a viewfinder :) The Ikonta rangefinders are 530/531 in number. About 300 pounds now. Those have coupled rangefinders. Here some reading camera-wiki.org/wiki/Ikonta#Ikonta_Format_4.5x6_cm, look for 4.5x6 Ikontas

There are 2 red windows, which one do I have to loook at before taking the shot?

1 metre is about 3ft. Or another way to remember is that a 30cm ruler is 1ft on the other side. Pretty interesting anyway.

Those cameras like overcast weather whit 400 film. And fokus fokus fokus..

Have shot just a few rolls of 120 but the film looks pretty fogged in both cases, that mostly explains the 'overexposure' in some shots; should show more on the outer part of the roll...Also, the world is a bit divided on the 1 stop per decade rule, but while you can get by with box speed within a decade, it's almost a must for older, 2-3+ decades film as degradation is not exactly linear.

the dimensions printed on the camera are not correct. this is a 6 cm. x 6cm or two and a quarter square inches negative. It should be calibrated for 12 images on the film NOT 16. set the focus at 18 ft. and aperture of f11@100 sec will always give you a well exposed shot .the smaller the aperture e.g f22or f32 will extend the distance that is sharp. remember that technicall there is only one point of focus but sharpness of the image is regarded as 'in focus'. this area is called 'dept of FIELD' erroneoulsly called dept. of focus which is entirely something else and does nt affect anything really . if, say you photograph a football team and distance from the front row to the back row is 9 ft,focus on the 3rd row & the dept of field will ensure the whole team is sharp

Haha, we are spoiled with modern cameras.