Voigtländer Bessa 66

This is a medium format folder from the German firm of Voigtländer. It dates from between 1938 and 1940. This model was also made after WWII from 1946 to 1950, but my camera is a very early model - more later. There was also a cheaper version available with a folding viewfinder and no automatic framing.  It is extremely similar to the later Perkeo that replaced it in 1950.

Voigtländer Bessa 66 (C) John Margetts

This camera has a lot of 'modern' features that make it stand out from earlier folding cameras. These include a body shutter release and automatic frame advance - no need to look in the red window when advancing the film, the camera spaces the film automatically (more or less, it does not work too well on my camera. I used the red window).

First, a basic description.  The camera measures 125 mm wide by 40 mm thick and 80 mm high when folded and 95 mm thick when open. This is very much a pocket camera even if the pocket needs to be robust enough to take the weight - 524 g without a film. As standard, the top plate is uncluttered. It is made from chrome plated brass  and has a reverse-Galilean viewfinder right at the right-hand end. On the opposite end is the film advance knob. Close to the advance knob is a frame counter - one of the 'modern' features I mentioned. That should be all that is on the top plate but a previous owner has glued an accessory shoe on using a large amount of epoxy glue.  Close to the rewind knob, on both the front and back faces of the top plate are two sliders. Without an instruction manual, it is not clear what these do. The one on the front clearly advances the frame counter and seems to free the advance system to allow the film to be advanced. When the film moves through the camera, a feeler shaft rotates and this serves to measure the amount of film that has moved and the film advance locks when one frame (62 mm) has moved. There is no clear use for the rear slider but I think it might have to do with setting the start of the film once the red window has been used to line up the first frame. I would welcome advice here from anyone who has a better knowledge of this camera. This system only works sporadically with my camera and when using the test film I relied on the red window for all frames.

As this is a folding camera, the lens is hidden behind a door that must be opened before using the camera. This is achieved with a button the the base. Pressing this causes the door to spring most of the way open - it might well have opened completely when new. When open, it locks the lens/shutter firmly in place. To close the lens door again, there is a chrome bar beneath the lens which must be firmly pressed to unlock the struts holding the door in place. 

As supplied new, this camera came with a hinged yellow filter ('Moment' filter) but this has long since broken off as is usual for cameras of this age. Also as a consequence of age, the bezel around the lens has come loose and fallen off (it was glued in place). This means I have no lens name or focal length information but I can gather this from information from the interweb. The lens has a serial number (located inside the camera on the rear of the lens). The pre-war versions of this camera were supplied with either a  three element Voigtar or four element Skopar lens. Of these, only the Skopar had a serial number so mine must be a Skopar lens. It is a 75 cm focal length lens (as was the Voigtar option) with a maximum aperture of f/3.5. The shortest marked focussing distance is 1 m, but the lens will move significantly further than this so the closest focus is going to be nearer to 0.7 m at a guess. The lens is not colour corrected (that would be a Color-Skopar) and is not coated but performed well regardless.

The shutter is a Compur shutter with a serial number of 3 751 602 - my records tell me that this dates from between 1935 and 1939. The lens serial number is 2 245 637 and this dates from between 1937 and 1942. (The range of dates is so vague because both Compur and Voigtlander lost most of their records in the destruction of WWII.) I have a piece of further dating information in that the slider on the front of the top plate was removed in 1939 so my camera must be from 1938 or early 1939.

The Compur shutter has a fastest speed of 1/300 seconds (later models had a Compur-Rapid shutter with a nominal 1/500 second speed) and apertures from f/3.5 to f/16. Both of these are very usable in 2015 with modern film. What is missing from this shutter is a delay timer and any flash connectors. For my test film, I used Kodak Portra 160 ISO film in sunny weather in April and shot most of the film at either 1/100 or 1/300 and f/11 or f/16. As is usual for this date, the shutter needs cocking before use. While the primary shutter release is on the shutter housing, the actual release is a lever that protrudes through the lens door. This is strictly left-handed in use, leaving your right hand to have a firm grasp of the camera.  Exacta did things the same way.

The base plate has three items. On the left is a lever with two functions. In the closed position, it prevents the back being opened and when swung out, it acts as a foot to allow the camera to be securely placed on a flat surface for longer exposures (together with a cable release, which the shutter is threaded for). There is no delay timer, so no selfies with this camera. In the centre of this lever is a tripod boss. This is a 3/8 inch Whitworth socket with a 1/4 inch Whitworth insert.  At the other end of the top plate is a depth of field calculator. You rotate the disc to set the distance you are focussing at to the pointer and then read off the depth of field against the aperture you are using.  The third item on the base plate is the release for the lens door.

In use, this is a simple, easy camera to use. The hardest part is the viewfinder which, as was normal in its day, is rather small and not usable while wearing glasses. With the left-hand shutter release, you can get a really good grip on the camera while actuating the shutter release with your left index finger. It is easy to cock the shutter with your right hand while still gripping the camera. 

The hardest part is reading the numbers on the shutter speed, aperture and focus scales. They are rather small for my ageing eyes.

As is common of Voigtländer cameras, there are Happy Snapper settings on the lens. These are marked by a small triangle and a small circle. If you set the focus to the triangle and the aperture to f/8 then all between 2.5 m and 5 m will be in focus (ideal for portraits) and if you set the focus to the small circle, and the aperture to f/8 then all between 5 m and infinity will be in focus (ideal for landscapes).

Even though the lens is neither colour corrected nor coated, it has performed well. There is no visible colour fringing (the panchromatic films in use in the 1930s would have needed well corrected lenses) nor is there any significant flare visible in my test pictures. Where I have shot Contra Jour, there is some slight evidence of flare but it is very minor. I have much worse lenses in my collection.

The film I used for my test was Kodak Portra 160, developed and scanned by Snappy Snaps in Lincoln.  Loading the film is easy - both spool holders are hinged. The camera takes either 120 or 620 film (only 120 is currently available). The dark bar along the right-hand edge of some frames is a scanning artefact, not the camera.

Shot into the light - some flare on the right-hand edge

Agilux Agifold

AGI, who made this camera, are an aeronautical instrument maker - still in business - rather than a camera maker and it shows. During WWII, AGI made military instruments and that pedigree is followed in this camera. It is large and heavy and has no small controls so easy to use with cold hands, with gloves on, when frightened . . . 

lens: Agilux anastigmat

focal length:  9 cm

apertures: f/4.5 to f/32

focus range: 3 feet to infinity

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Agifold

speeds: 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/125, B, T

flash: two pin connector

film size: 120 or 620

Outwardly it is much like any other folding camera - Kodak, Zeiss Ikon, Voigtlander, Agfa all made similar. The main physical difference is the large double viewfinder. This consists of one large housing containing both an eye-level finder and a waist-level finder. The waist-level finder is pretty much a pre-war brilliant finder. This viewfinder housing also double as the catch for the lens board - it moves to one side to open the front. This housing is central on the top of the camera. Beside it is a shutter release button. This button links, via a series of links, to the shutter release on the shutter housing - again, standard fare for a mid-twentieth century folding camera. On the other side of the shutter housing is the film advance knob. this is nice and large and easy to use. Being a 120 format camera, there is no film rewind.

The shutter is made by AGI themselves but outwardly it looks much like a Compur or Prontor shutter. The adjustments are in the same place the main difference being the shutter cocking lever which is on the underside of the housing - rather inconveniently. The shutter release is also on the underside where it nicely links to the body release. The actual shutter itself is not in the same league as Compur or Prontor - it has only two leaves and is rather reminiscent of a box camera shutter. The speed selection is non-standard as well. 1/25, 1/50 and 1/100 are much as I would expect from 1948 but the next speed is 1/125 - the increase in speed is so small as to be pointless. It is usual for the shutter speeds to double in speed from one setting to the other which is one stop reduction in exposure but this is a 25% reduction and it is hard to see a use for it.

The lens is also made by AGI themselves (at least as far as I can gather from information on the Interweb) and is a 9 cm focal length (or 90 mm in modern parlance). The negative size is 6x6 cm so a normal lens would have a focal length of 85 mm. That makes this lens slightly longer than normal for the negative format, but not seriously so. The lens is coated (not a given in 1948) but I suspect only on the front surface. This has the distinct blue cast of a coated lens but the rear element is clearly not coated - no blue cast.

Being a 120 format camera, there is a window on the back to allow the user to see the frame numbers when winding the film on. Traditionally, these are red - red because early film was orthochromatic and not sensitive to red light - but on this camera you get a choice of red or green. There is a slider to uncover one or the other of these two coloured windows. What there is not is a cover for both windows which would have gone further in preventing fogging of the film.

I have been referring to this as a 120 camera but in fact it is a dual format camera - it will take either 120 or 620 film. The only difference between the two is the spool (the actual film being the same size with the same frame number spacing) and the spool holders here will take both sizes. The camera came to me with a 620 spool in place and I have now fitted a 120 spool to check the fit.

There is no accessory shoe so no way to fit either a rangefinder or a flash gun.  However, there are flash contacts - not the industry standard PC socket but two metal posts on the side of the shutter housing. These can be seen in the photograph of the lens above on the top right of the shutter housing.

When I took delivery of this camera, it was in quite a sad state. It had obviously been in a smokers house - it was covered in a sticky brown deposit - and also stored somewhere damp. Diligent use of WD40 and cotton buds has brought the camera up nicely - not quite in showroom condition but just about presentable. The shutter is not quite as I would like. An hour or so of dry-firing the shutter has it firing reliably and it sounds to be in the right general area speed-wise. One fault it has is that when set to 1/100 seconds and fired a few times the shutter resets itself to 1/50 seconds.

I am still in two minds as to whether I am going to try a film in this camera but if I do I will post the results here in due course.

Petri 7s rangefinder

I recently made a decision to add a few rangefinder cameras to my collection. I have had a Minolta Uniomat for a few years and recently bought a Zorki 4. These two cameras represent the two lines of rangefinders that were available in the world of film.

The Zorki is from the line of interchangeable lens rangefinders that follow on from the Leica. Most of these are fairly straight copies of Leicas - all German patents were declared void after the end of WWII - with varying degrees of development.

The Uniomat is from the other - fixed lens - line. These fixed lens rangefinders are cheaper, though never cheap. Not having an interchangeable lens means they can - and do - have between-the-lens leaf shutters.

Petri 7s - front view [(C) John Margetts]

My collection of fixed lens rangefinders now numbers five (I am only including those with a coupled rangefinder) - Vitomatic II, Contessa LKE, Uniomat, Minister III and now this Petri 7s.

This Petri 7s is exactly the same size and shape as the Minister III - I could almost suspect they used a common casting for the body. The weight is not too different, either - 632g with a film loaded.

lens:  Petri

focal length:  45 mm

apertures: f2.8 to f16

focus range: 0.8 m (2.6 ft)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Petri MVE

speeds: 1 s to 1/500 s

flash: PC socket

film size: 35mm

The top plate of the Petri 7s is uncluttered. On the left is the rewind crank. This is the now standard fold-out crank which I personally find hard to use. The crank pulls up to allow for the insertion/removal of the film cassette.

Petri 7s - top plate [(C) John Margetts]

Just left of centre is the accessory shoe. By the time this camera was designed (1963) this was usually for a flash gun. It is a cold-shoe - accessory shoe contacts had to wait a further decade to become standard. To the right of the accessory shoe is the light meter window. This is fairly small - the actual window is 5 mm diameter - and incorporates a lens to make seeing the needle and mark possible.

Next along is the shutter release button. This is fairly large - no bad thing - and is threaded for a standard cable release. On the rear right-hand corner of the top plate is the frame counter. This is also a bit on the small size but still usable.

The front of the camera is dominated by the shutter housing. This is fairly large for a fixed-lens camera - the size is necessary because of the light meter sensor around the lens (as in the Yashica Minister III). 

Petri 7s shutter housing [(C) John Margetts]

The lens is a 45 mm f2.8 lens. It has no name on it apart from Petri. A green 'C' signifies that it is a coated lens - normal for the time - but does not tell us if it is multi-coated or single coated. As far as I can find out, it is a Tessar copy - four elements in three groups for the technical minded.

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The shutter housing has several controls on it. There are the expected control rings - focus, aperture and shutter speed - a flash synchronisation selector (X or M), a delay action lever, film speed selector and a PC connector for the flash. The shutter housing carries the name 'Petri MVE'. The shutter itself is a leaf shutter which means it is quiet in use - excellent for street work.

Above the shutter housing is an elongated window containing the rangefinder window and the viewfinder window. The viewfinder is a reverse Galilean finder (like looking through a telescope the wrong way) and the image is coloured a pale green. On the right-hand end of the front, just below the shutter release, is another window but one that does not seem to have any purpose - perhaps for a facility intended but not implemented. The viewfinder has bright lines with parallax markings. It also has a repeat of the light meter needle. This is much easier to see than the one on the top plate. It is not, however, easier to use as it is very hard to distinguish between the shutter speed and aperture rings by feel.

Petri 7s spurious window [(C) John Margetts]

The rear of the camera is plain. There is the eyepiece of the viewfinder and the film advance lever. The base of the camera is also plain. It contains a tripod boss in line with the centre of the lens (1/4" Whitworth is what I usually say, but it could well be modern enough to be 1/4" UNC. The ISO standard for tripod threads is UNC rather than Whitworth but there is not much difference between the two and Class 1A threads (to be tightened by hand) are sloppy enough to be interchangeable between Whitworth and UNC), and a recessed button to allow for rewinding the film.

Petri 7s rear view [(C) John Margetts]

Using the camera is quite easy. Setting the film speed for the light meter is a matter of rotating the black tab in front of the shutter speed ring - this is on the lower right of the shutter housing. The selected film speed appears in a small window in the shutter speed ring to the left of the fastest shutter speed. This is in both DIN and ASA and goes from 11 DIN/10 ASA to 24 DIN/200 ASA. (ASA is broadly but not technically the same as ISO) This seems a bit of a slow range by today's standards but when the camera was made, it would have covered all the films likely to be used.

To set the exposure, you can either set the required shutter speed and then rotate the aperture ring until the meter needle is centred, or set the required aperture and adjust the shutter speed ring, again until the needle is centred. The meter is a selenium meter which means it does not need batteries. These can deteriorate if left exposed to light for many years but this one is still fine (actually, I have never come across a selenium meter that was not fine - I think the deterioration thing is mostly theoretical rather than real-world).

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The focus ring has a large knob on the left-hand side which makes focussing with the left hand easy. There are two options for focus - scale focus or rangefinder. For scale focus, there is a big drawback in that there is no depth of field scale which makes my usual hyperfocal method impossible. The focus scale is in both feet and metres.

Using the rangefinder is not as easy as it could be. Petri have tried to make the rangefinder clear by colouring the viewfinder field a pale green and the rangefinder spot yellow. In my camera, the rangefinder spot is rather faint. In good light it does work, though, and it is quick to focus if you have suitable verticals in the frame.

The shutter release works easily without needing undue pressure but without being too much of a hair-trigger. The film advance moves about xx degrees and makes a very definite 'clunk' as it cocks the shutter.

The only other thing worth noting is that there are strap lugs at either end so I can carry the camera on a strap around my neck without needing to use the ever-ready case.

Test pictures.

I am testing this camera with Fomapan 200 Creative film - it is also a test of the film, to some extent as I have never used it before.  I have a 17 metre roll of film and can cut off the amount I need - I am using a 12 exposure length for this test.  This should save me quite a bit of money compared to buying colour film and paying to have it developed.  I should have developed the film in the next few days and will post the results here when I have done so.

27/10/14

As well as testing the camera and film, I am also testing my developing of the film - it is basically developed OK but I can tweak it somewhat in the future to improve contrast. There are some horizontal lines visible - these are scanning artefacts due to the emulsion being a bit on the thin side.

Flooded ex-gravel pit.

The Strait, Lincoln

Steep Hill, Lincoln

Angel Coffee House, Lincoln - hand held in natural light.

Wooden bridge to test the rangefinder - I focussed on the larger wooden upright.

Yashica Minister III

This is a rangefinder camera from Yashica that is pretty standard for its time.  It is almost exactly the same size as Zeiss Ikon's Contessa LKE of the same period and looks very similar as well. It is slightly larger than Voigtlander's Vitomatic II which is slightly earlier.

lens:  Yashinon-DX

focal length:  45 mm

apertures: f2.8 to f22

focus range: 0.8 m (2.6 ft)

lens fitting: fixed

shutter: Citizen

speeds: 1 s to 1/500 s

flash: PC socket

film size: 35mm

The camera is quite heavy - 656g including a 24 exposure cassette of film. This weight is going to tell at the end of a busy day photographing. It is 135 mm long and 85 mm high. The body is 35 mm thick which increases to 85 mm when the lens is included.

Yashica Minister II ((C) John Margetts)

 There are not many controls on this camera - it is entirely manual. On the top plate, starting on the left, is the rewind crank. This also pulls up to release the cassette for loading/unloading. Next to this is the accessory shoe. In flash terms, this is a cold shoe. next to this is the meter dial. This has two components: ASA setting and meter read-out.  ASA can be set between 10 and 400 ASA (new style). Behind this is the read-out for the meter. This gives you EV numbers between 4 and 18. In use, you choose the EV number the needle is pointing to and transfer this number to the outer most ring on the shutter housing. You are quite at liberty to ignore this if you want to - if you are using a hand-held meter, perhaps - or using the flash.

Next in line is the shutter release button, which is towards the front of the top plate. This is a small (by modern standards) chrome plated button, threaded for a standard cable release. Beside this is the film advance lever. Right on the right-hand end of the top plate is the frame counter. This is automatically reset when you open the back and counts up from 1.

The front of the camera has the viewfinder and rangefinder windows and the shutter housing with lens. The viewfinder is quite large and bright and has bright-line frame lines. In the centre of the viewfinder image is the yellow rangefinder spot. This is plenty large enough without getting in the way and is nice and bright. The rangefinder is coupled to the lens.

The shutter is made by Citizen - no model name is given - and it is a leaf shutter. The shutter housing is fairly large and central.  Partly, it looks large compared to Compur and Prontor shutters of the period as it is straight sided rather than stepped. There are three adjustment rings on the housing. The inner most, marked in green, is the focussing ring. This focusses from 0.8 metres to infinity and is marked in both metres and feet. Strangely, there is no pointer for this scale and the pointer position (where the pointer would be if there was one) is well to the right of centre. I suspect the designer thought there was no need for a pointer as the user is intended to use the rangefinder but I would be more comfortable if there was one. 

The outer most adjustment ring, marked in red, is where you set the EV numbers from the light meter. Even though the meter only offers numbers from 4 and higher, the ring is marked for 2. Setting this ring gives the user a range of both shutter speeds and apertures. Once the EV number is set, you can rotate the middle adjustment ring - the shutter speed ring - to change the shutter speed. Doing so also alters the aperture so that the required exposure is maintained. There is no direct method for adjusting the aperture, but there is a small window immediately behind the shutter speed ring showing the set aperture. If you want a particular aperture (which I usually will) you can alter the shutter speed until the desired aperture is displayed in the window.

Minister III - rear view ((C) John Margetts)

On the base of the shutter housing is a small lever which sets the delay timer. Although we are always told not to use this on an old camera, I can report that it works very well on this particular old camera.

In the front of the shutter housing, around the lens, is the light meter sensor. This is a selenium sensor and so needs no battery - there is no problem with this camera of having to find a replacement for an obsolete mercury battery. Many 'experts' will tell you that old selenium meters are too unreliable to be worth using. This is based on the fact that the light sensitive surface deteriorates with time and then gives low readings. While this is true, if the meter has been kept in the dark except when being used the deterioration over 60-odd years is so slight as to present no problems. I have many selenium meters that are 60-odd years old and they all give accurate readings and I shall continue to use and trust them. I doubt those 'expert' who decry using old selenium meter have actually tried using them.

The advantage of having the light meter sensor around the lens is two fold. Firstly, it is always pointing in the same direction as the lens and secondly, if a filter is used, it fits over the sensor and no adjustment of the meter reading is required.

The lens is a Yashinon-DX lens (I do not know the significance of the 'DX'). This lens has five elements in four groups and is reputed to give very good results. The focal length is 45 mm so the angle of view is very close to the human eye and accordingly will give natural looking results. The largest aperture is f2.8 which might not seems to be particularly fast, but, to be honest, I never shoot much wider than f8 so I just do not care that the lens does not go to f2 or f1.8

This camera has a PC (Prontor-Compur) connector for the flash and this is, idiosyncratically, place on the left-hand end of the camera.

The base plate of the camera has the usual tripod boss - this is the 1/4 inch Whitworth thread - and it is placed centrally behind the lens which means the camera will be stable when on a tripod. Also on the base is a recessed button to free the internals for film rewind and, at the opposite end, a recessed button for unlocking the back. I find this hard to use - you need to slide it to one side and then press it in. Perhaps with time I will find it natural, but not yet.

27/10/14

I have now completed my test film and I am quite impressed.  The camera is easy to use - the light meter works well as does the viewfinder.  I had some flare when shooting into the sun but I did not use a lens hood. Generally, the lens has good contrast and colour rendition.

I took the picture of the reed flower to test the lens at maximum aperture.  The flower is nicely sharp and the background not sharp - as I would want it.  These were all taken in October, so not a lot of sun about.

The cathedral from the footbridge over Broadgate, Lincoln.

The Strait, Lincoln

main railway line, Lincoln

Reed flower

Young Love

Olympus μ Zoom 115 (also Mju Zoom 115)

This is a sophisticated point-and-shoot camera. It is clearly a development of Olympus's XA series. The camera opens by sliding a cover to the right, exposing the lens and switching on the electrics. Controls are minimal making it very much a point-and-shoot camera. In fact, it is quite possible to ignore the few controls provided and then you have a basic point-and-shoot with a 38 mm lens (and autofocus).

Closed/off

All of the controls are on top of the camera. On the far right of the camera is the zoom control. This defaults to the shortest focal length of 38 mm. This is slightly wide for a 35 mm camera but not excessively so. 'Normal' for 35 mm (the diagonal of the negative) is 43 mm. Pulling the control will zoom the lens to 115 mm (hence the name of the camera). A nice touch is that the viewfinder also zooms so the viewfinder image always matches the lens image.

Open/on

Next to the zoom control is the shutter release. This is a fairly large chrome plated button. This is easy to find by touch which is as it should be.

Next to the shutter release are two small chrome plated buttons. The front one sets the delay timer and the rear one sets the flash mode. There are six flash modes. Default is the flash firing when there is insufficient light without it. The first selectable mode is red-eye reduction where the camera fires a few low intensity flashes to make the subject's pupils contract before the main flash. The second mode is no flash - this allows you to take moody pictures in poor light. 

Third mode is the flash always on. This is for fill-in flash when the background is brighter than the subject. The fourth mode is night-portrait mode - this restricts the flash to illuminating the subject while leaving the background dark. The fifth mode is a combination of the first and fourth modes - night-portrait with red-eye reduction.

Next to these controls is a small LCD display. This gives minimal information: frame number, flash mode, delay on/off. To the left of the LCD display is a small pop-up flashgun.

Telephoto position (115 mm)

On the back is the viewfinder eyepiece. This has a dioptre adjustment so us spectacle wearers can use this camera without our glasses. Also on the back is a small window to allow the user to see what sort of film is in the camera - or, indeed, if there is any film in there at all. This is a simple but very useful facility for those of us with several (!) cameras as it is very easy to forget which camera is loaded with which film.

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On the base is a standard (1/4 inch UNC which is just about the same as the old standard of 1/4 Whitworth) tripod boss. This is right on the right-hand end of the camera. This is not a good place to have this (in the centre is better and under the lens node is ideal) but I doubt this camera ever gets used with a tripod. 

Also on the base is a recessed button to allow for rewinding the film before it is finished. When the film is finished, rewind is automatic.  The battery chamber is on the right-hand end of the camera. The battery is a CR123 lithium battery which is still readily available.

Back

I currently have a film in the camera and I will report on using the camera and the image quality when the film is finished.

20 September 2014

I have my test film back from Snappy Snaps and here are the results.  This camera is rather easy to use - the only real awkwardness I have experienced is that it is a bit small for my hands - then again, this is a compact camera!

Image quality is certainly good enough for snap shots, which is what the camera is really for.  I would not use it for serious photography, but I might carry it on those occasions when I do not want to be encumbered with kit - a night out, perhaps.

The first few are of a herd of cows/calves at Frampton Marsh RSPB nature reserve, Lincolnshire (near to Boston).  I am quite pleased with these - I like cattle - but the close-ups show a design weakness.  The camera is happy to take a picture when it cannot focus.  At the least, a warning would be nice.

This flower was blowing in the wind outside the visitor centre at Frampton Marsh. It has been captured fairly well - indicating that the automatic exposure system has selected a fast enough shutter speed. I have added a crop of the top flower to show how well the camera has captured detail - quite well, I think.  The graininess of the magnified picture will be a mix of the grain of the Agfa Vista + film and the medium quality scan I asked the lab to do.

Crop of the top flower.

This next picture was taken in poor light with mist in the distance. It is the British Sugar sugar beet processing factory at Bardney seen across a field of wheat stubble.

 

The next three are close-ups taken in a wood. The first is not very impressive - I cannot make out what the white blobs are although I suspect they were fungi of some sort.  The third picture is exposed quite well, but the first two show the limitations of the camera in challenging conditions.

The next is Lindum Hill in Lincoln. A bright but not sunny day - all seems to be well.

The rest are of Wells (in Somerset, not Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk I usually photograph). The camera has done well here - I could use this camera for street photography as it is quite discrete in use and works well in an urban situation.