{"id":20272,"date":"2018-07-21T10:56:24","date_gmt":"2018-07-21T17:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wkoopmans.ca\/notebook\/?p=20272"},"modified":"2018-07-21T10:56:24","modified_gmt":"2018-07-21T17:56:24","slug":"the-agfa-optima-1035-sensor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wkoopmans.ca\/notebook\/?p=20272","title":{"rendered":"The Agfa Optima 1035 Sensor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Optima1035-4336\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Agfa Optima 1035 is a small box of a camera that based on its looks could easily be dismissed as one of those cheap plastic fixed focus cameras that should just be recycled as soon as possible so they can become something useful like a cat litter box.\u00a0 Looks are deceiving though and the Optima 1035 has some interesting features.\u00a0 Lets start our tour though with the battery compartment which is hidden away under the film door.\u00a0\"OptimaInside\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> It takes three 625 batteries which can be quite expensive so while not ideal I have just used some LR44’s which can be found almost anywhere and dirt cheap.\u00a0 While we are inside the back of the camera there is the film loading mechanism which is completely hidden away under a thin plastic guide\/cover.\u00a0 It seems to work without any issues and makes for very simple film loading much like motorized film advancing of later cameras.\u00a0 When you have the back open you will also notice that the bottom spindle for holding the film canister in place pops down to facilitate the loading of the film another nice touch.\u00a0 Closing the back and moving on to the top plate the defining feature is the large reddish\/orange shutter button.\u00a0\"OptimaShutter\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> A light press of this button lights an LED on the front of the camera whos sole purpose seems to be to warn whoever the camera is pointed at that they are about to have their picture taken.\u00a0 Without this the Optima 1035 might be considered a good street photography camera so I think a little black tape might fix that.\u00a0 Also on the top plate is a small button that when pressed down and turned allows the film to be rewound.\u00a0 Rather than using a separate rewind lever with this button set to R the film advance lever becomes the rewind lever.\u00a0 The same winding action now winds the film back into the canister.\u00a0 A neat little feat of engineering that allows the camera to be as compact as it is.\u00a0 The last thing of note on the top is the flash hot shoe.\u00a0 It has a small tab that allows the camera to ignore the flash related aperture setting on the lens until there is actually a flash mounted.\u00a0 Moving back to the rings around the lens you can also find the focus ring which unfortunately is zone focusing with only two detent settings of 15\/5ft between the ends of infinity and 3ft.\u00a0\"OptimaZonefocus\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> Although you can set it at any value in-between if you choose the\u00a0 indicator needle in the viewfinder wont be pointing directly at one of the pictograms.\"OptimaViewfinder\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0 And now having arrived at the viewfinder its time to mention just how big and bright it appears.\u00a0 The viewfinder has a magnification of 0.78 which is well suited to the lens 40mm focal length.\u00a0 The viewfinder as well as being visually large is also bright and clear with only a hint of barrel distortion and no visible colour aberrations (I can clearly read this text I am writing through it).\u00a0 Finally the\u00a0 tour ends with the lens and shutter.\u00a0 The lens is a 40mm f2.8 Solitar with 4 elements in 3 groups and the shutter is\u00a0 Agfa’s electronic Paratronic shutter with a wide range going from 15 seconds to 1\/1000 second.<\/p>\n

The images bellow from the camera were shot on Adox Color implosion film which is known for its purposeful graininess and odd colour shifts.<\/p>\n\n\t\t