Friday, June 24, 2011

Simplify, simplify, simplify . . .

Chicago Board of Trade Building (aka "Wayne Tower")
Agfa B-2 Cadet Box Camera, Kodak 120mm Tri-X 400
Developing and lo-res scan by 120processing.com
I picked up an old box camera awhile back on eBay.  It cost me less than $20.00, including shipping, and was in great shape, especially for something that is probably better than 70 years old and is basically just a cardboard box wrapped in thin leather.  I had seen some really interesting shots in the Box Camera Revolution Flickr group, and wanted another "toy" camera to go along with my Holga.

This is a shot from the first roll I put through the camera.  I haven't shot anything else with it yet, because I wanted to see what came back.  The image above is just a lo-res scan emailed to me from the service that I send out for developing (the negatives will be coming shortly by mail).  This is just the straight lo-res scan file. I didn't even correct the horizon tilt, which is probably going to be an ongoing problem with this camera since you frame the shot by looking down through a little offset mirror.

The light leaks are from the film roll not rolling up tight on the uptake spool (known as a "fat roll"), which allows light to get in from the side when taking it out of the camera.  I will have to see if I can increase the tension on the spools a little more to try and cure this.  It looks like almost all of the shots came out a bit underexposed as well.  Other than choosing a higher speed of film, there is not way to adjust exposure values on the camera.  It was designed to take pictures outside in bright sunlight on the slower films available at the time.  I used 400 speed film, but it was a grey, overcast day, and I took these near sundown as you can see from the streetlights being on.

I am looking forward to getting a look at the actual negatives from this roll.  Now that I know that the camera is functioning properly, I can take it out with some more film and do some more experimenting.

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