Agfa Ansco 1A Readyset

Today was a photography adventure!  My husband, Austin, and I went garage sailing this morning (as we do most weekends), and we stumbled upon the nicest couple selling antique cameras.  Well, I fell in love.  They had about seven or eight beauties, and I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect one.  I did.  

Ahhh, the gorgeousness of this camera is astounding.  It was made in the late 1920s or early 1930s by the Agfa Ansco Corporation (tough name to say...).  It actually folds in on itself to a nice compact, portable carrying case.

Here's a closer look at the face:

It actually takes film (a medium format film, which is bigger).  And the view finder is that black box above the lens.  You actually look down into your subject area.  The shutter is also on the lens.  It looks like a little switch.

Unfortunately, being almost 100 years old, the bellows (the part behind the lens that looks like an accordian) probably leak light, so I can't really use the camera.  But that'd be one awesome shot.  Everything is fully manual of course, and the photographer needed to balance shutter speed with the amount of lighting available.  They didn't have Photoshop, or even the ability to instantly look at the photos after a picture was taken.  Back in the day photography was a hard science! 

The moral of the story...it's always nice to take a step back into the history of my most favorite hobby's roots.