#FrugalFilmProject, an introduction to the Golden Wonder: The Welta Penti II half frame camera

#FrugalFilmProject, an introduction to the Golden Wonder: The Welta Penti II half frame camera

After a week or so fiddling with the Welta Penti II I've selected it as this year's camera for the Frugal Film Project. I'm going to experiment with half-frame. Not just any half-frame, of course, but half-frame with Rapid cassettes. It's an odd little camera, and not a purchase I'd originally planned to make. On the Kamerastore website I came across a Lomography 75mm glass lens for the Diana F+, which I had been after for a while but was always too stingy to order from Lomography. 

To make the shipping cost more palatable I took a look at the 'Not Passed' items, and right near the top was this little golden beauty. Intrigued, I clicked on the entry and discovered that it was a Penti II, a half-frame camera introduced by Welta in the 1960s. Although it uses 35mm film, the Penti II uses Agfa Karat rapid film canisters. Well, that was enough for me, and I pressed 'Buy' straight away. Of course, being in the 'Not Passed' category it has, 'flaws that will affect typical use', in this case, 'fungus inside the lens and viewfinder [and] the exposure meter does not work.' I wasn't too worried about the exposure meter, this is also a manual camera, though the 3-element lens might be a challenge to get into and clean.

When it arrived it was really 'love at first sight', the Penti II is just so cute. This is an all metal camera, and it shows. From its gold stippled facade and lens to the black trim, it's all metal, cold to the touch and heavy. When you're used to lightweight plastic cameras, to turn the Penti II over in your hands is an experience. It also has a really unique method of winding on the film. Sticking out of the side of the camera is a metal rod (gold, of course). When you push the shutter button the metal rod pops out, and when you push the rod back in this winds on the film and cocks the shutter. The only thing to remember is to hold the camera in a way that when you fire the shutter the rod doesn't hit your hand.

The Welta Penti II was a successor to the Welta Penti launched in the late 1950s. It is a 35mm half-frame camera that uses Rapid film cassettes, not normal 35mm cassettes. Released in the early 1960s until about 1967, the Penti II featured selenium cell metering and was equipped with a Meyer-Optik 30mm f3.5 Domiplan lens. With apertures between f3.5 and f22, and shutter speeds of 1/30s, 1/60s, and 1/125s, the user would dial in the combination of aperture and shutter speed that would move a mark visible in the viewfinder. When the settings mark matched the position of the selenium cell mark your exposure was correct. Of course, the selenium cell in my Penti II doesn't work, but fortunately I can use the camera manually with a meter.

On the top of the camera is the film counter, which needs to be dialled in manually when loading the film, and a cold shoe which holds the flash. On the bottom of the camera is a tripod screw. And that's it. There are no wind-on or rewind knobs, just the metal 'plunger' protruding from the side, because when the film is wound on it's just fed from the full Rapid cassette to the empty one by the action of pushing the plunger, which also cocks the shutter for the next exposure. 

Normally, Agfa Rapid film came in 12 exposure cassettes, which means that a typical Rapid cassette would give 24 half-frame images in the Welta Penti II. Originally VEB, the manufacturer of the Penti II, made Agfa Rapid cassettes, so it was natural, when producing their own cameras, to use the Rapid system, which they called the 'Schnelladekassette', Speed Loading, or SL cassette. Nowadays these cassettes are no longer available, although you can pick up expired films and empty Rapid cassettes from eBay or vintage camera retailers. Expect to pay a premium, though.

I managed to source some dirt cheap Agfa Iso-Rapid IF cameras from Kamerastore (we're talking 8€ here), and fortunately between them these contained four cassettes, so I'm up and running. Filling a Rapid cassette from a roll of 35mm film is quite straightforward, though of course you'll need a darkroom or a dark bag. A 12-exposure roll of film is about 60cm long, so I place a 30cm ruler in the dark bag and cut the end from a roll of film to make it fit into the slit of the Rapid cassette. I'll slide the end of the film into the Rapid cassette, then in the dark bag use the ruler to pull a length of 30 cm of film from the 35mm cassette and feed this into the Rapid cassette. Once the first 30cm is inserted, I'll repeat the process then add a few more cm and snip the film. Back in the daylight I'll cut the end of the film in the Rapid cassette so that it'll slide nicely into the empty cassette in the camera. 

To load the film in the Penti II, I take the empty cassette and slide a bit of film from the full cassette into it. Just a little bit, one cm or so. Then I'll insert the cassettes into the back of the camera and make sure that the sprockets are catching on the wind-on tab before closing the pressure plate. Oh, before you close the back remember to reset the frame counter to 0 using the little knurled knob. Then close up the camera, wind on the film until the counter reads '1' by pushing the plunger and firing the shutter a couple of times, and you're good to go.

The weather is a little unsettled at the moment, with heavy wind and rain much of the time. But next week promises to be better, so hopefully I'll be able to get out with the Golden Wonder and put it through its paces.

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#Agfa, #Rapid, #AgfaRapid, #Cassette, #Welta, #Penti2, #RapidFilm, #HalfFrame, #FrugalFilmProject,