About Agfa Ansco Chief
The Agfa Ansco Chief is an optical direct viewfinder medium format box camera made in Germany between 1935 and 1941. During this time, Agfa Ansco used two models of the camera, JN152 and NJ153, which made it very confusing for my session due to a lack of information and some misinformation. The JN152, like the Chief that we have here, captures eight 5.71 x 8.25 cm (almost 6x9) exposures on Agfa PB20 or standard 620 roll film. The other model is the JN153, which captures eight 6.3 by 10.8 cm exposures on Agfa PD16 or standard 616 roll film. This German camera was created in collaboration with Henry Dreyfuss, an American famous industrial designer. This camera features a fixed meniscus lens that can be rotated from Near to Far. The minimum focusing distance for the N (Near) option is 6 feet, and for the F (Far) option, it is 15 feet. You can also capture close portraits at a distance of 3.5 feet if you have the Agfa No.29 portrait attachment. This camera has two shutter options: instantaneous and bulb. However, we were not able to find any information about the shutter speed and aperture for this camera, but we assumed it shoots at f/16 with a 1/60s shutter speed. The camera also has a built-in yellow filter option that is recommended for sunny landscape photography. The current value of this camera is between $15 and $30.
