How it all began: My first camera / Part 2

“Balanceakt”, a sculpture by Stephan Balkenpol, in Berlin. Shot with an Agfamatic 2008 pocket camera on Lomography Color Tiger film.

Getting the pocket films developed and properly scanned was much more complicated than I had expected.

Fotoimpex Berlin, where I had bought the Lomography pocket films, had an offer of either only developing the films or having them developed, scanned and printed, at the price of 35 Euros per film. Plus you had to send them in and pay extra postage on top.

I found this to be quite expensive and went on the search for other solutions. After a while I found a lab in Berlin that would do it for about half the price. Alas, it turned out that half the price meant really bad quality prints and scans. The resolution of the scans was appallingly low, the exposure and contrast of the prints sub-standard by any account. I won’t share the name of the lab, suffice to say that they are based in the city center.  

Unacceptable scan quality from the first lab.

Here again, the old truth held up: pay less and you pay twice. After some additional research, I found a lab in Berlin that offered professional scan quality of pocket films, but it wasn’t cheap at all. About 25 Euros per film plus postage. However, the quality is great, so this lab gets a mention here: Fotoporto.de in the heart of Neukölln. 

There was an issue with the professional scanning lab, too, but it was resolved without much hassle in a very friendly phone call. 

Very good scan quality from the second lab, fotoporto.de.

How did the Agfamatic fare?

The big question for me was - would I have fun using the camera, for instance on certain projects? 

The answer is clear: I don’t know.

On the one hand, it was great to have a camera in hand that didn’t require a lot of thinking, was pocketable and light, made great sounds, even smelled good. 

On the other hand, the whole process of having the film developed and scanned (and printed, if need be) is so time-consuming that it takes out the fun. 

The test with the Agfamatic(s) was actually also about the question what I could think of using them for. The answer here is a bit more complicated.

Here are some of the potential use cases that I could think of:

You want to get vintage-vibe pictures of cityscapes, grainy as hell, with vintage colors. Then the Lomography Color Tiger films combined with the Agfamatic 2008 or whatever film camera you have at hand might be the way to go.

Pictures of your loved ones that don’t show skin blemishes or wrinkles or some stray hair but rather draw the viewer's attention to the colors and the vintage look.

Stills work astonishingly well, too, in my opinion. (Shot with the Agfamatic Pocket 6008 Makro).

But there also some examples, where I found the pocket cameras to be quite weak. Makros are really difficult, even with the more advanced Pocket 6008 Makro. Due to the low resolution of the films, they are also somewhat odd, at least to the eye of a macro photographer, even if they are in focus (which is not easy at all).

What I also like where some interiors that I took because they really had some good lighting.

Interesting surprises 

Some of the pictures I took really surprised me as I wasn’t expecting them to be great in the first place. For instance, the following picture of the chestnut tree behind our house would be a major issue for high-resolution digital cameras that would expose purple fringing around the leaves (a lens flaw).

But by far my favourite picture is this snapshot of the new Axel Springer Headquarters in Berlin. An iPhone would potentially exhibit a lot of lens flare in a situation like this. Not so the Agfa Agnar lens. 

Wrap-Up

It was a very interesting experience using an analog film camera again after about 15 or so years. Even more so because it was my very first camera when I was a kid. 

The process of getting the films developed, scanned and printed was an interesting throw-back, but none that I would like to repeat very often. There may be occasions when I want to have some vintage look or tend to my nostalgia, but on the whole, I am glad to have moved to digital cameras some time ago.

The question remains what I will do with these old cameras in the future. Selling is not really an option, so I will probably put them on display somewhere around the house.