Background
Adox is among the oldest brands in the photographic industry. Dr. C. Schleussner founded in 1860. Adox is best known as a film brand but like so many other film manufacturers it has also made cameras. The Schleussner familily owned the brand for about 100 and in the early 1960’s sold the company to Du Pont. Production of both film and cameras was initially continued. Camera production ceased first and in the 1970’s the production of photographic films, machinery and know-how was sold to Yugoslavia. Ownership of the brand Adox stayed with DuPont, the film produced in Yugoslavia was sold under name Efke. In later years the brand name was acquired by Agfa which did not use it but let its registration lapse in 2003. At that point Fotoimpex registered it and revived it as photographic film provider and manufacturer.
The beginning of Adox as a camera manufacturer in 1938 is bound to the sad and tragic events of the era. It all started in 1920 when brothers Heinrich and Josef Wirgin established camera factory Kamerafabrik der Gebrüder Wirgin in Wiesbaden. When Nazis took over in early 1930’s they began driving Jewish business owners out. Finally also the Wirgin brothers fled. After Nazis confiscated the business it was bought by Carl Adolf Schleussner of Adox who at that point simply continued manufacturing existing models of Wirgin cameras under name Adox.
After the Second World War Heinrich/Henry Wirgin returned from the US, bought his camera factory back and continued the production of Wirgin cameras. Adox did not give up on cameras but continued in the 1950’s after developing its own models. Among those was the Polo featured here. Adox’s camera production ceased in 1965.
Various Adox Polo models were produced from 1959 to 1964 The camera here is the first model Polo without any numbers. Polo 1 was otherwise similar to this except for the finder being of higher quality with frames. The other models were of higher specification having Schneider-Kreutznach Radionar lenses and wider range of shutter speeds. These Polomat, Polomat 2, Polomat 1S and Polomatic 3 also had selenium meter and some incorporated exposure automation.
Out and About
Adox Polo is very light and as such gives a flimsy first impression. Light weight is due to body being mostly of plastic. Only top and bottom plates being of metal. However, some other parts prone to wear and/or requiring strength like film pressure plate, winding crank and the back latching parts are also metal. Despite all the plastic used built of the camera seems solid enough and lightness is an advantage carrying camera around.
Loading film is easy. Rear is opened pulling a latch on the right side of the camera. Inserting film is done like usually and it travels from left to right. One thing to remember is to set the film counter, it does not reset itself while back is open. This is done by turning a black wheel by the counter window clockwise until the desired number is reached. Counter is of count down type, for a 36 exposure roll it can be set at 38. Finally one can set the film speed reminder at correct speed on top of the rewind button.
Without batteries to worry one measures or estimates exposure and sets aperture and exposure time in dials on lens barrel. After that one sets distance to estimated value, points the camera looking through finder and presses shutter release button to expose. There is no need to cock the shutter, camera does it simultaneously with film transport. In my sample of the camera both aperture and shutter speed adjustments worked smoothly but in distance setting there was stiff from 4 meters to infinity. It felt like it needed fresh grease – assuming there is grease since by the looks and feel of it the lens is also constructed mostly of plastic. Well, the camera is sixty years old and in all likelihood has never been serviced after leaving the factory, so this is to be expected.
Range of shutter speeds is rather limited in this basic model of Polo and for street photography the film may need to be selected depending of time of day and lighting conditions. Earlier on these pages I presented another Adox for roll film promising to test it with Adox film. I still have no Adox film in 120 size and when I got this I decided to use this also first with Adox film, since I have some in 135 size. The best suited for this would have been Silvermax at ASA 100 but since I was freshly out of it the first roll in this one was Adox CMS 20 II Pro. Days being now shorter and light even daytime in short supply this was not an ideal choice. In summer it would have been a bit different. For general daytime shooting ASA 50 – 100 is probably the best. With color negative maybe ASA 200 if the stock – like mostly – accepts overexposure.
The tactile feel of the shutter release is not very good, not at least in my camera. Combined with extremely quiet sound of shutter this this makes it difficult to make sure when the exposure is and if it at all has happened. I even took a selfie just to see the shutter blades really move. The interlocks preventing double exposure and pressing shutter button if the film has advanced do make sure the exposure happens but not hearing it if there is any background noise at all is disconcerting in the beginning.
The tactile feel when advancing film is not good either. The travel of winding crank is normal, but for some reason one stroke does not seem to be enough since more often than not the shutter button could not be pressed before operating crank again. Apart from these minor inconveniences using the camera is straightforward and simple.
With limited shutter speeds but wide range of aperture control it is very good that there is tripod bush in the bottom. Since it also, unfortunately is plastic one has to be careful using it. In my camera it probably had not been used before – which is good. I’m sure one careless over tightening would destroy the thread. Lightness of the camera means that any tripod can carry it. Cable release thread incorporated in the shutter release button is helpful in tripod use since the camera does no have a self timer.
And the Pictures Are…
I only shot two rolls of film with this and at the time of writing I have developed only the first one. So, there is a disclamer to what follows: it is based on very little actual experience with the camera.
The first pictures I scanned I suspected I either had done something wrong or was doing something wrong. Pictures were so soft that I had not seen anything similar for a long time. I assumed camera was working properly but as of writing this I have not checked collimation of the lens. A selfie I took focus set at 1 m just to see the camera shutter was actually working seems sharper in the outer field than in the center. A later try of a portrait at the same 1 m setting at apertures from full open to f 8 yielded similar results. Still, I am not sure the focus is off.
In any case it seems the lens draws very soft. About bokeh the initial impression is there is no bokeh. This is due to the fact that wide open – and f 3.5 is not very wide – and up as close as the camera focuses there is more pronounced softness in the center of the picture than in the edges.
I shot also my target wall with USAF test targets at six meters both set on lens and as the measured distance. Despite the shutter speed range being very limited I managed to get a shot at all apertures from wide open to f 16.
Wide open and f 4 are both equally soft, while the targets are visible, nothing on them can be read the bars, even the largest ones are just blobs of blur. A very slight sharpening is noticed at f 5.6. Stopping further at f 8 the largest bars are separated from blur. At f 11 more bars can be seen and also the biggest numbers. There is very little, if any discernible difference between center of picture and field. At f 16 the draw is at best, substantially better than at f 11. This is still borderline quality, possibly acceptable to general photography with only modest enlargement capacity.
Vignetting is visible in the corners, even at f 16. This means that in critical – well that may not be the best word…let’s say in demanding assignments – vignetting needs either be built in the subject interpretation or the picture taken so that the corners can be cropped out.
Conclusion
This was a brief encounter with Adox Polo – only two rolls of film through – and thus my impressions are only just that. On the outside the camera looks nice and is well finished albeit in mostly plastic. Only some parts subject to wear are of metal, like the film backing plate and the rear cover latching mechanism.
Superficially the lighness and all this reminds of my favourite camera of this type the Smena 8 M. Both are fully manually adjusted and have a triplet lens. Polo has the benefit of automatic shutter cocking combined with film advance. Smena has – at least based on this -a superior lens that has the edge in close ups of being focused as whole while Polo is – I gather – of the type where only the front lens moves.
Using Polo the lightness is a benefit though camera feels flimsy due to that. Shutter operates so quietly that it is difficult to determine when the exposure happens – if it happens at all, sometimes one stroke of winding crank needs an extra little tuck for the shutter to operate. Luckily there is an interlock preventing full push in of the shutter button, unless shutter is cocked. Mere sound does not reveal shutter operation unless the surroundings are exceptionally quiet.
Using the camera was more pleasant than looking at the pictures it produces. The lack of sharpness was a bit of a shock. For a film manufactures it seems a bit counterintuitive to manufacture a basically decent camera with a lens that discourages a photographer from putting film through the camera. If the only perceived clients have been ordinary people not expecting much of the pictures they take and suspecting fault is theirs when pictures turn out bad then this perhaps makes sense if it saves money. It could also be that this one sample is misadjusted or has received a much worse lens than most others – I just don’t know.
All in all as a camera to have around with this has the benefit of being light if not the most compact. The modest performance of the lens sets limits to what subjects Adox Polo is good to cover with.
Specification
| Type: 35 mm camera with finder | |
| Lens: Adoxar 45 mm f 3.5. Apparently of triplet type | |
| Shutter: Central shutter. Speeds B, 1/30, 1/60 and 1/125 s. According to some sources shutter is a Prontor 125. | |
| Aperture: Separate from shutter. Five blades, adjustable from f 3.5 to f 16 | |
| Focus: Set on lens from 1 m to infinity by estimate. Zone focusing aids in red numbers. Selecting first for aperture red f 8 and then for close distances red 6 ft/ 2 m or for longer distances red 20 ft/ 6 m. | |
| Film transport: Manual with help of crank. Rewind release button on bottom plate. Rewind with knob. | |
| Frame counter: Count down type. Manual reset after film change. | |
| Film speed indicator: On the top of rewind knob. Values set manually from 10 DIN/8 ASA to 30 DIN/800 ASA | |
| Cable release: Thread for cable release incorporated in shutter release button. | |
| Tripod bush: 1/4 ” plastic in the center of bottom plate. | |
| Accessory shoe: On the top. Left from centerline. Not a hot shoe. | |
| Flash operation: Flash synchronization via cable. Socket located on upper right hand side of lens. | |
| Weight: 300 g | |
References
lippisches-kameramuseum.de
de.wikipedia.org/ Carl Adolf Schleussner
usingoldcameras 