Magic Lantern / Petzval Lens

I’ve recently acquired a couple of 19th Century Magic Lantern lenses and I was really looking forward to do this test.

Magic Lanterns were the predecessors of slide projectors and the page below it's a great source of information:

http://www.magiclantern.org.uk/events/events4.html

I mounted one of the lens in a piece of cardboard and put in my 4x5 Toyo camera. For this particular test I was trying to get the exposure time correct as most of Magic Lantern lens haven’t got an aperture setting to control the light.

A bit of resource and  I found out that the focal length is 195mm and the aperture is about 4.5, for this reason a low speed film (25 ISO) it’s definitely something to consider.

I used 100 ISO roll film (because I couldn’t wait until I get some 4x5 25 ISO!). This is a cheaper alternative but I won’t be able to see the lens effect in full, but since I’m more interesting in the exposure times for now it’s fine.

The film is Fuji Across 100 and I processed in Rodinal 1:100 solution.

The results came out slightly darker than I wanted, the exposure time was about 1 and 2 seconds and considering I'm using 100 ISO and a lens cap as a shutter it's not that bad. It will definitely improve when I buy a 25 ISO and with a 4x5 negative I'll also be able to see more of the lens effect, they're known for giving a sharp image in the midle and quite a lot distortions around the edges.

Hand - Coloured Photographs

Another trip to my local antique market and I found some more old photographs to add some colours.

Not all of them were matt and my colour pencils does not work on glossy paper, but there were so many interesting ones that I ended buying them anyway... after few hours I manage doing these ones:

I had this happened again... the oil used before I apply the pencils penetrated in the paper and left these awful marks.

I can't really do anything with this picture below since it has a glossy finish, the reason I bought it's because it looks so similar to the Echo & the Bunnymen's record cover "Flowers".

I've looked on the sleeve notes and it's written "Original cover photograph courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin".

Beirette Pinhole Camera

Back in action with my DIY Beirette Pinhole Camera, and this time is for  a more comprehensive series of tests.

Walking around the Soho area I spot this lovely Mini in stunning condition !

The exposure time from 1 to 4 seconds and processed with Rodinal 1 hour 1:100 stand development.

Voigtlander Vito II

Just playing with a different technique for scanning 35mm negatives that a friend recommended at the filmwasters.com

As you may be aware it's a bit tricky to get decent images when scanning 35mm negs using flatbed film scanners as the results can be very grainy. I got some negatives out of the box for this test and I found these which I thought it was perfect to try since I had no previous success. They were taken using one of my favourite 35mm cameras, the Voigtlander Vito II. 

 

Voigtlander Avus

This gorgeous German made camera was produced between 1913 to 1934, this particular model was designed to take 6.5x9 glass plates but can also  be used with film as well, all you have to do is find a roll film back to use the 120 format or, with a bit of patience you can “glue” some sheet film in some kind of board to fit in the dark slides.

This one  came with the four original Voigtlander darkslides, I bought  some extra four on ebay to start playing until I can get hold of the roll back which can be tricky to find.

To start I cut few pieces of cardboards on the size of the plates and then glued the sheet film on the board with a bit of honey, which seems to be the preferred method by some folks I spoke to. The film I used was the German Wephota 100 ISO, the size is a bit smaller than I thought and I had a quite hard time in the dark to place the film correctly onto the board, I tried hard to leave as symmetrical as possible but some of the pictures were not in level so I had to adjust in Photoshop.

The film was processed with Rodinal 1:100 solution one hour stand development, the results are quite good but the processing were not even, probably because I had to pre-soak the film in water in order to get rid of the honey… I don’t know. The negatives were scanned and only curves and levels were adjusted, I tried keeping as original as possible.

For those who are used to large format photography will be familiar with the camera's movement. You can focus through the glass window at the back just like any other large format camera or with the scale placed at the front. There’s also a viewfinder at the top of the lens and a spirit level.
 

1960 Kodak Royal-X Pan

My first post in more than a month and the results aren’t what I expected but I thought I’d share just in case.

Not long ago I bought this Kodak Royal-X Pan 1600 ISO film and this weekend I decided to use it. The film was expired in march 1960 and I thought the occasion asked for an old camera as well so I loaded into my 1930's Kodak Brownie n2 Box camera.

After spending a good few cold hours in Brick Lane I finally got my much precious 8 shots with the camera, got home and processed the film. The results aren’t great at all, to start I guess the film wasn’t stored properly, it broke few pieces while loading on the spiral. It was also badly exposed as I couldn't control the shutter speed on this type of camera making hard to compensate. 

The film was processed with Rodinal 1:100 at 15 degrees 20 minutes developing time with very slow inversions every minute. Maybe I bit more developing time would work out but since the film was ISO 1600 I was afraid to overexpose. In the end this is what I've got:

click over the picture to enlarge

Imperial Satellite II 127 Camera

A great little plastic camera made in the 60’s by the US company “Imperial Camera Corp”, this one is apparently the “New Improved Model!” as it said in the box, it came with the original instructions and flash unit which is exactly the same as the original 60’s Diana F, it operates with 2 batteries and flash bulbs. At the front of the camera a little switch changes to colour or B&W mode. In fact what it changes is the aperture size that can be useful nowadays as a “cloudy” and “sunny” settings.

The only problem is that it takes 127 film which can be quite expensive to get hold of since it has no longer been produced. At the average cost of £5.00 for a new B&W film you can take 12 4x4 shots per roll, just to compare you can get 16 shots with a Diana at average £1.70 per 120 film which still wide available it’s definitely something to consider. Not to mention that if you don’t process the film yourself, you might drive the lab’s owner crazy (some of them have never heard about 120 films before imagine 127!) Of course you can find some (much) expired film on ebay and its fun to try but it’s not always available.

 

I didn’t want to wait and decide to respool some 35mm film onto a 127 spool and had a go. I’ve seen some people doing the same with 120 onto a 620 spool so it should work. I had some old 127 spool from previous films bought on ebay and luckily the back paper as well. All I did was to use a spare 120 back paper and cut the exactly size as the 127 and marked with a pen the frame numbers on the new back paper. In total darkness I cut some fresh Kodak 35 mm film enough to cover the length of the 127 film area and loaded into the spool. Simple isn’t it ? Not really… it turns out to be my first film disaster of the year. The film went out of the paper inside the camera and got overexposed and nothing came out when it was processed. I had another go but this time I made sure I taped the film well on the back paper and the results are here.

 

I like the results, overall they're a bit dark but I have to try with a different film speed, also I didn't try changing the aperture switch as well. I’m a big fan of pictures showing the film sprockets/edges and these ones came out nicely, some images were a bit blurry due to camera shaking. Anyway...the main purpose of this test was to see how the film would run inside the camera rather than image quality.

The numbers I drew on the back paper were right, the frames were well divided along the negatives with just one overlap.

I used an original 127 film back paper as a template and cut a new one from a discarded 120 to cover the 35mm film, I then drew the frame numbers following the template so there were no problems winding the film (mind you there are few positions for each frame number so for each camera it might be different). I made a little cut on the new back paper to guide me in the dark where the fresh film should start.

And here's the film ready to be loaded ...