Seele
Anachronistic modernist
My fellow correspondents have done well making valuable suggestions and insights. I have not used a 6X6 Perkeo for some years now but I still use the Isolette III (uncoupled RF, Solinar lens, Synchro-Compur).
Having used a fair few folders over the last three decades or so, I feel that the most important aspect is the accuracy and precision of the folding structure: with the lens not perfectly held at where it is meant to be, even a truly great lens will produce disappointing results; that is, we would assume that the camera body is holding the film reasonably flat within depth-of-focus. We are, after all, talking about cameras which are more than a few years old, and some designs are better at weathering the same degree of wear and tear, and individual examples vary quite a lot too.
One thing I am not too sure about is the claim that Agfa folders tend to have unserviceable bellows now, but the ones that I have used - including an as-new Record III with Solinar and Synchro-Compur that I foolishly sild - have been just fine. Another point is that the increased degree of "user-friendliness" might back-fire on the user over time. Say for instance, coupled rangefinder on a folder might sound appealing, but the greater degree of mechanical complexity might also increase the likelihood of failure as well. For me, the Isolette III is a pretty good compromise, where it has a rangefinder (which I serviced as it was stuck solid), and the coated Solinar always delivers. But then, the focussing thread, as expected, was frozen solid due to the appalling grease used by the boys at Munich, which was eventually rectified. Voigtländer folders tend not to suffer from that.
That said, the lens should really be properly collimated to ensure the focussing scale is correct. If the camera has coupled rangefinder, the rangefinder also needs to be correct and matched with the lens, and the focussing mechanism has to get both of them precisely tuned to get both of them matched up. This isn't something that I would want to try on a camera about half a century old! So, keeping things simple might be the most practical approach.
Having used a fair few folders over the last three decades or so, I feel that the most important aspect is the accuracy and precision of the folding structure: with the lens not perfectly held at where it is meant to be, even a truly great lens will produce disappointing results; that is, we would assume that the camera body is holding the film reasonably flat within depth-of-focus. We are, after all, talking about cameras which are more than a few years old, and some designs are better at weathering the same degree of wear and tear, and individual examples vary quite a lot too.
One thing I am not too sure about is the claim that Agfa folders tend to have unserviceable bellows now, but the ones that I have used - including an as-new Record III with Solinar and Synchro-Compur that I foolishly sild - have been just fine. Another point is that the increased degree of "user-friendliness" might back-fire on the user over time. Say for instance, coupled rangefinder on a folder might sound appealing, but the greater degree of mechanical complexity might also increase the likelihood of failure as well. For me, the Isolette III is a pretty good compromise, where it has a rangefinder (which I serviced as it was stuck solid), and the coated Solinar always delivers. But then, the focussing thread, as expected, was frozen solid due to the appalling grease used by the boys at Munich, which was eventually rectified. Voigtländer folders tend not to suffer from that.
That said, the lens should really be properly collimated to ensure the focussing scale is correct. If the camera has coupled rangefinder, the rangefinder also needs to be correct and matched with the lens, and the focussing mechanism has to get both of them precisely tuned to get both of them matched up. This isn't something that I would want to try on a camera about half a century old! So, keeping things simple might be the most practical approach.
