[GeoJerry]

Nice shot! But what in the world is an Agfa Billy Record II? I've never heard of this!

[Bob Harris]

lovely fall colors, film right?

[45 Mike]

Nice shot! But what in the world is an Agfa Billy Record II? I've never heard of this!

A 1950's 120 roll film folding camera that shoots 6cm x 9cm frames, that is a medium format negative that is about 6 times as big as a 35mm negative.



The Billy is the one on the left which I shoot color film in. The one on the right is a Franka Werke Rolfix II, that shoots the same film, and I use it for B/W.
On the shelf, left to right, out of focus is my Yashica-Mat TLR that also shoots 120 film, but as a 6x6 negative, and an old box camera that takes 120 film, also 6x9 frames, but is a point and shoot, no exposure controls. Then is an old brownie box camera that uses film that no one makes any more, I don't use it, I just set it there to confuse people.

---------- Post added 10-22-14 at 00:39 ----------

lovely fall colors, film right?

Yes, 120 film, I shoot Ektar 100 for color and Ultrafine 100 for b/w
Thanks!

[qblade]

Beautiful colors on the photo, and nice cameras! Can't beat 120 film results. When/how did you get those?

[45 Mike]

Beautiful colors on the photo, and nice cameras! Can't beat 120 film results. When/how did you get those?

Both were purchased from ebay, the Billy was first, about June of 14 I think. I paid about $30 for it. The green grease had turned to concrete, and I had to take the lens/shutter apart, clean it all up then put it back together. After that work, the shutter ran beautiful, very crisp and accurate. However after I ran some film in it, it had severe light leaks in the original bellows. This is rather common on the Agfa folders, after 50 years the bellows of paper coated with plastic just falls apart.

I then bought the Rolfix II, with the intention of swapping out the bellows, but they are not interchangeable. The Rolfix uses real leather for the bellows and they last a very long time. I think I paid about $8, plus shipping for the Rolfix. It works great just the way I got it. I think the shutter had been serviced recently.

I toyed with building my own bellows for the Billy, until recently, then decided to send it to Certos6.com

He did a complete clean, lube, adjust and new bellows for about $130, and I just got it back last week.

I prefer the Billy for color, because it has the coated Solinar 4 element lens. The Rolfix with Trinar lens does OK with color, but I use it primarily for b/w.

I have two Yashica TLR cameras that shoot 6x6 120, the Yashica-Mat in the background shoots B/W, and my Yashica-D model I use for color. My D model was a mess when I got it from ebay, and with that one, I totally disassembled the camera, lenses and shutter/aperture assy. Cleaned it all up, reassembled it and then did a custom paint and recover on it.


I used real wood veneer to cover the body, and yes it was a scary adventure the whole way.

[qblade]

That's a beautiful camera - quite a work of art! (I can imagine that it was a scary adventure - I wouldn't know what to do.)

Had you done your own repairs before?

[45 Mike]

That's a beautiful camera - quite a work of art! (I can imagine that it was a scary adventure - I wouldn't know what to do.)

Had you done your own repairs before?

That Yashica-D TLR was my first successful R&R. I had attempted a repair on a Pentax MX that I got cheap off ebay, but ended up selling for parts and buying a good one instead.
Thanks. Yep, nothing i would want to try on someone else's equipment, for sure.