Pathescope Motocamera

Last summer a friend passed onto me a most interesting leather case which had been in his family for many years having in turn been passed to his mother many years ago by a neighbour who was clearing out her own attic. the neighbour I believe was housekeeper to a naval commander, who had been on a tour of duty just before the outbreak of WW2. It would appear that the contents of the case - a Pathescope Motocamera, lenses, light meter, filters and several boxes of Pathescope 9.5mm cine film have remained untouched since that time. 2 of the cases of film are dated, by hand, "March '36" and "June '38". My friend thinks the naval officer was called Bishop and his ship may or may not have been HMS Hood. Intriguingly, the camera appears to contain another film, and the boxes appear to have been exposed, and never processed. It would be fantastic to see if they could still be developed and to view the films, unseen since they were shot in the 1930's!!
The clockwork Pathescope Motocamera was first built around 1930, but this model appears to have been pretty much new in 1936, as it is fitted with a socket in the lower part of the camera front with an attachment for holding additional lenses (known as the Roth version).

 

These are not images of the actual camera or meter.

I'll be contacting the Imperial war Museum about this and hope to have an update in the near future.

Kodak Instamatic 33

I challenge anyone growing up in the 70's like me not to recognise the Kodak Instamatic. Surely every house had one of these compact, easy to use cute-looking era-defining cameras. The Kodak Instamatic 33 was one of the very first cameras I ever owned, and I remember it and it's black plastic case strung around my neck on just about every family holiday we ever took.

I picked up a '33 recently at the Lancaster Antiques Centre for (get this) 10p!! and I put the 126 cartridge that was still inside it through the processors at Farnells Lab recently. the plastic cartridge casing must certainly have helped protect the film inside because I got the contact prints back yesterday and we have a result! Some jolly little back garden snaps of a pet poodle among the patio flowers, and all with that lovely 1970's de-saturised look and some nice camera leak effects (okay I'm a geek!).

Canon AE-1 Program

Yesterday as I sat down at my work desk, I found this lovely Canon AE-1 Program 35mm SLR camera with a cryptic note asking "any good?"
The camera turned out to be a gift from a colleague who knows about this project and thought I might find it useful. Isn't that nice?!

The Canon AE-1 Program was introduced in 1981five years on from the Canon AE-1. The major difference being the introduction of the Program AE mode which sets both the shutter speed and aperture automatically.

I'm not quite so sure however that my generous colleague knew she had left partially used film in the camera! We'll have to see what turns up on that roll!

The AE-1 Program has a delightfully retro looking manual which makes me think that the camera may be from 1981 but the manual must surely be a 1970's design classic!

Kodak Bantam Colorsnap 3

The Kodak bantam Colorsnap 3 was produced between 1961 and 1963. The camera's EV scale index uses four weather symbols selected by two pointers, for dark and light scenes, and another scale is added on the EV ring, below the lens, for flash use.The Colorsnap 3 is actually the same age as me, so I feel quite attached to it!

I picked up this lovely old camera from Bolton Le Sands Trash 'n' Treasure fair for £1. It contained a fully exposed roll of Kodak 828 film - Exciting! 828 film is similar to the more modern 35mm film, but produces a differently sized 28mm x 40mm negative.

Sadly the film came back from the lab completely fogged and blank.

Coronet Flashmaster

This week's new camera find is this 1955 Coronet Flashmaster, from an antique shop in Kendal (£6). The Flashmaster takes 6cm x 6cm on 120 roll film. sadly no film inside this one, but I look forward to putting some through at some point.

The advert here is from a 1955 edition of Picture Post (courtesy of old school paul).

Agfa Optima 535

The Agfa optima 535 is a small German-made 35mm film camera, first manufactured in the 1970's. It has some very nice features including a nice compact, build, a big sensor and a large and bright viewfinder. It has a 40mm/2.8 lens, and shutter speeds from 1/30s to 1/500s. The 0.9x viewfinder is equal to that found on the Leica M3.
I picked up this lovely Agfa Optima 535 from a charity shop in Clitheroe, Lancashire. It contained a fully exposed roll of Kodak 35mm 24exp 200ASA colour film. Cost £2.00

The film roll was developed at Farnells lab in Lancaster.

Results of the film processing are quite interesting. Looks like a middle aged couple in Spain/Portugal, possibly on holiday in a caravan whilst waiting for a new holiday home to be built. Some nice double exposures.

If you recognise anyone, or have any further information on the location etc, please email me.
(click an image to see a larger version)

Welcome to the Slingfilm project.

As someone who was around cameras from a very early age, thanks to my dad being a 60's hobbyist photographer, I have collected and in many cases discarded possibly hundreds of cameras. 

The Slingfilm project has developed out of my camera collecting and from finding, possibly due to the recent development of digital photography, a growing number of film cameras in charity shops and car boot sales etc which still contain undeveloped rolls of film. Given that we live in a society that has enjoyed photographing and documenting almost every aspect of our lives, and that most people would consider their photo albums as the first possession they would reach to save in a house fire, I'm more than a little interested in these cameras and photographs that have been (knowingly or unknowingly) discarded. The Slingfilm project will attempt to document the discarded cameras I find along the way, where found, how much I paid for them, some history of the camera itself perhaps, along with the films often found inside them and the results of the processing of those films - the lost memories. 

I am lucky to have a great film lab nearby (Farnells Photographic lab) who have been helpful in processing of these old films, some of them untouched for 50 years or more. The results will be patchy, many I know will be fogged and useless, others will be badly exposed, but perhaps, just occasionally, some gems might turn up. 

Let's just see how it goes...