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 ...

Tru-View Diana Clone

First colour tests taken with my 60's Tru-View Diana clone.
 

Beirette Camera

The Beirette is a cheap plastic 35mm camera made in East Germany by Beier. Several models were made between 50's and 80's, this particular model is from the 70's and comes with a very nice fake leather case. It has the same weather system similar to the Lomo Smena, all you have to do is select the apropriate weather symbol, focus and shoot. The lens is a Meritar and the focus is measured in feet, aperture range from 2.8 to 22 (unless you have a hand held meter you won't be looking at this...). The shutter speed is selected accordingly with the film speed like the Smena. It also has a B setting, tripod mount and cable release socket. The results are ok, nothing really impressive...although I have to say that the film was expired and the negs were scanned at Boots! but overall is a fun camera to play and I really like the design.

Copan Building - Sao Paulo - Holga Camera

The Copan Building it's in the heart of Sao Paulo city in Brazil and it was design by the architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Sinomax Diana Clone

Another great ebay found, this Diana clone is in almost mint condition. The camera is complete including the instructions, original metal spool and an interensting little piece of paper inside with a number 7(pictured),  some sort of code used by the factory.

I thought the results somehow came out darker than I usually get with my other Diana cameras. I normaly use 100 ISO but I think I'll have to use 400 ISO next time or try using the cloudy setting. I'm also happy with the lens effect although I think the vignetting is more than I normaly get with my other toy cameras.

Woolworths - Holga Camera

Tru-View Diana Clone

My first results with my Tru-View Diana clone was much better than I expected, the lens has a very soft focus effect and slightly sharp in the middle. It was the perfect combination with the Ilford HP5 400 ISO for a cloudy day in Cornwall and definitely added some atmosphere to the shots, my only regret was to take just one roll with it! I wasn't sure how the pictures would come out as it was my first time using the camera. It was the first time as well I used with the kitchen sponge placed where the film goes to make it tight, just like the Holga cameras. I'll be doing this in all my Dianas, specially de lomography ones where the film gets losen easily. 

Victorian View Camera

So far, the oldest camera I've ever bought. An unnamed victorian wooden view camera including the original shutter in fully working order. Although I'm not able to check if the speeds are accurate, I can at least use the camera on  B or  T setting. The only problem is that the base to attach to the tripod is missing and I'll have to send somewhere to adapt a socket to attach a modern tripod. 

 
I've been meaning to use this camera for a while, my original plans were trying the 19th century photography process called collodion, in which a light sensitive emulsion is placed onto a piece of glass to be exposed. I won't get into the details here as there's plenty information on the web, but what I can say is that needs a bit of space to do it and at the moment this is something I don't have so I've decided to adapt the dark slides in order to take a normal 4x5 sheet film.

I cut a piece of cardborad on the exactly size of the plate, measured where the 4x5 film would be and then placed the paper holders.

The three  holders were cut and then folded in a way that the negatives could slide in...

You can make the holders to fold easily by using the opposite side of the blade...

then  fold it, you should end up with something like this ...

...glue the holders on the cardboard and  let it dry. Try it before with an exposed film just to check if it's correctly placed, take off the slides a few times just to be sure that is running free, if it's ok you're ready to go to load in the darkroom.

I really like the results... I shot two negs with available light and processed with Rodinal special 1:100 solution.

Ilford Delta 100 
f/22 -  4sec

f/11 - 1sec