Thursday, July 30, 2015

Recovering cameras

I don't know which of these activities I like better, photographing, tinkering, processing, experimenting new recipes, viewing others pictures, etc., all about photography.


The camera above was almost unrecoverable. Very damaged by exposure to sun, many parts cracked, like lens holder and back and a broken film rewind button. It was an acquisition of my youngest daughter at a flee market at the place where she was studying arts, The piece must be exposed at sun for many time because it started falling apart a short time after she bought it. She gave me the camera and said, «have fun recovering it».

I started dismantling the camera 2 years ago but only in the last days I finally had time to finish the work. The back is now covered with an opaque material, the lens holder was replaced with PVC 50mm tube black painted and with an adapter 43-52 mm allows me to use filters. The single lens is the original but the aperture is now fixed and the focus too. Pictures are sharp in the centre but out of focus at the edges, the left side more than the right side. Last tree pictures were made with this piece.




The pictures were made with B&W film, TMax 400 long expired, developed with the Parodinal 645. The film came up with a brown stain at the bottom (inverse of the positive), I think it was the fixer saying goodbye. Neverthless I scanned the film as color and... I liked what I got!

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