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!