Tuesday 26 March 2013

Week 169 - Kiev 30

Kiev 30 by pho-Tony
Kiev 30, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
This is a Soviet copy of one of the Minolta 16 models, the cassettes are compatible. I've used this before with some very expired Russian film that came with it, this time I've re-loaded a cassette with some home slit colour negative film. It seems that the film is quite tight, possibly it is fractionally more than 16mm wide, and I anticipate some problems with film advance this week :-(

Sunday 24 March 2013

photo from week 168 - Stereo Puck

derelict factory by pho-Tony
derelict factory, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
I spotted this scene through the broken window of a derelict factory, there was a window sill inside, and I rested the camera on it and used "B" to make an exposure of about 1 second. The bright patch in the middle is due to the film touching the adjacent coil in the spiral, and preventing the chemicals reaching the area where the surface were stuck together.

photo from week 168 - Stereo Puck

Another dimly lit indoor space, this time the exposure was about 30 seconds. As I have found with other old stereo cameras, there is a difference in exposure between the 2 lenses, I'm not sure why this happened with the shutter on "B", as the exposures were exactly the same.

photo from week 168 - Stereo Puck

grain store by pho-Tony
grain store, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
This really is a very simple camera, there is no focussing, no choice of aperture (though later versions had Waterhouse stops to give 3 apertures), and single shutter speed plus "B". This was taken in a fairly dimly lit corner, I put the tripod on a camera, and held a black card in front of the lenses while I opened the shutter, then once I'd stopped touching the camera and risking moving it, I used the card as a shutter to give an exposure of approximately 20 seconds.

Thursday 21 March 2013

Week 168 - Stereo Puck

Stereo Puck by pho-Tony
Stereo Puck, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
The Stereo Puck was made by Thornton-Pickard from 1931. This is one of the earlier examples, lacking the name plate that was on later models, and without the three aperture stops that also came later.
It's a very basic box camera, and I've loaded it with one of the Lomo Redscale films that I picked up cheap a couple of months ago.

photo from week 167 - Motormarine II

Somewhat underexposed, but not bad given the poor light.

Wednesday 20 March 2013

photo from week 167 - Motormarine II

drowning duck by pho-Tony
drowning duck, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
I still had a few exposures left, and in order to finish the film I took the camera in the bath with me. For this one the camera was completely submerged, I used the built in flash and close up lens for all of these, the aperture is f16 and the focus 0.5m

photo from week 167 - Motormarine II

Peace Gardens Fountain by pho-Tony
Peace Gardens Fountain, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
I tried to take a few photos where the camera got wet, this was taken with the fountain splashing on the camera's lens.

Thursday 14 March 2013

Week 167 - Motormarine II

Motormarine II by pho-Tony
Motormarine II, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
I picked this up for £10 in a clearout sale at a local camera shop recently. It all seems to work except for one of the LED exposure indicator lights, but it is still quite usable, and can be used manually anyway. I chose it this week because the weather forecast was for a lot of rain, but after a day or so it turned very cold and we got snow instead. I've taken a few pictures, but I think I'll leave the film in until it warms up and I can try taking photos in fountains or heavy rain, at the moment everything is frozen.

Sunday 10 March 2013

photo from week 166 - Ricoh R1

duck out of water by pho-Tony
duck out of water, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.

This is at around the minimum focussing distance for this camera, it seems to have worked OK.

photo from week 166 - Ricoh R1

This was taken by available light, so I had to be extra careful to hold the camera still for the slowish shutter speed. The autofocus seems to have found the right spot, sometimes with mirror shots the focus ends up on the mirror surface.

photo from week 166 - Ricoh R1

wine section from the trolley by pho-Tony
wine section from the trolley, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
I used an expired ISO50 slide film this week, so slow shutter speeds and wide apertures were the order of the day. To reduce the chances of camera shake I rested the camera in my supermarket trolley and used the self-timer so that I wouldn't have to touch the camera to take the photo.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Week 166 - Ricoh R1

Ricoh R1 by pho-Tony
Ricoh R1, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
This is a new acquisition, I've already run one film through it to see if it works. The camera was also sold as the "Rollei Prego Micron". Mine is not fully functional, the flash no longer works, but the electronic shutter stays open for up to 2 seconds if needed. The interesting thing about the camera for me is the dual lens, which has focal lengths of 30mm and 24mm, selected by an additional element sliding into place. Originally the 24mm setting switches to "panoramic" format with internal masks, but these are easily disabled to allow a full frame image, albeit with blurry vignetted edges. I've loaded it with some expired ISO50 Fuji slide film which I will cross-process.

Tuesday 5 March 2013

photo from week 165 - Werramat

This dog was with a reporter from the local newspaper who was covering the annual memorial ceremony in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield, where ten US airmen died when their Flying Fortress bomber crashed in 1944.

photo from week 165 - Werramat

A German hat for a German camera!

photo from week 165 - Werramat

grinders' hill by pho-Tony
grinders' hill, a photo by pho-Tony on Flickr.
This one was taken at full aperture in poor light, I knew the depth of field would be shallow, and set the scale focus to 0.8m, guesstimating that to be the distance to the horizontal bar in the middle of the frame.