Morecambe Beach - Agfa Optima 535

Last year I picked up this lovely little camera at a charity shop in Clitheroe, and since that time it's been a firm favourite in my bag. So small, so easy to use, accurate with exposure, all round fab little fella.

This is a shot I took on it bak in the early part of this summer, whilst walking the dog on Morecambe Promenade.

 Sorry, I can't remember what film it was, some expired Jessops 200 ISO I think. I'll keep better notes next time!

Kodak Starmite

This weekend's great find has a double edge to it.

This gorgeous Kodak Brownie Starmite, which was in production between 1960-1963 (another one as old as me!) was in a car boot sale for just £1.50. Sadly, I had no change, and it was instead snapped up by a friend.


On the plus side, it had a roll of half- exposed Kodacolor II 127 film in, I took a snap of my friend and then he kindly allowed me to remove the film! 

Let's hope it has treasures to release! 


Sadly, my local printers, who kindly developed my strange old rolls of film for me (and didn't charge me if they came out blank) have closed down, so I have to find a new lab. It may be some time before we find out!

Discovering Wonderful Things

Recently, it was my birthday, and I bought myself a new toy...

Isn't it pretty?

It's called a film scanner. It's not the best film scanner in the world, nor the cheapest, but it does what it's supposed to do, and really rather well.

Why did I want one? Because I have boxes and boxes full of stuff like this....

and even more boxes of other stuff like this ...

I've been taking photographs since I was about 12, and before that my dad was a photographer too. Back then we both shot everything on film, we sent the film off to places like "Boots the Chemist" to be developed and several weeks later (imagine that - we had to wait weeks!) we got the films back again with the prints in wallets like this...

 

They were very cleverly designed to keep your prints in one side and your negatives safe in the other, like this ...

 

Sending your films away to be printed was very exciting, you had weeks of imagining how, when you got your pictures back, they would look like this...

or like this ...

When they did come back, they usually looked like this ...

 

But that was a wonderful thing, it was good to make mistakes, I learnt from making them, and sometimes those mistakes worked better than my original idea! I have my dad to thank for my love of photography, and because of him we have many, many wonderful family pictures like this ...

(that's me on the end, dressed as a camera, an outfit made by my dad, and my big brother on the other end, dressed as a Christmas present - we obviously had a lot of empty boxes lying around that year!)

Some years before my dad passed away, he give me several boxes of these wonderful things, wallets of old black and white film negatives and slides, 35mm, 120mm and more, which have lain in the cellar, waiting to be explored. Many, because dad enjoyed doing his own developing and processing, and because he often printed just one shot from a roll of 12 or 36, we have never even seen. 

Until now... and that's why I wanted this wonderful thing... 

 

And here's one from the first batch of scanning yesterday...

(me, aged about 3, in my neighbours house in Cardiff)

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.