antique photography!

[Jarrod]

hi all,

yesterday me and a friend tried to use this old kodak that once belonged to my grandfather. its a number 1-A pocket kodak, made about 1921. the film this camera was built to use has been out of production for who know's how long, so we just used some B/W photographic paper cut to fit. both images were exposed for roughly 1 second.

they turned out alright considering we had no idea what we were doing. we're going to try agian next week and experiment with the settings a little more to try and get better results.

they are the 3rd and 4th image's we took, the first was over exposed. the second worked well but we only used a small piece of photo paper, so it's not really worth posting.

i couldnt get our scanner working so i had to take photos of the negatives with a digital camera. i then inverted the colours and flipped the images.

feedback welcome,

jarrod.

[bojan]

Very nice, Jarrod, it is amazing that it is still possible to use those cameras... And combination of technologies used here is interesting :-)
I was using one of those back in '60ies, with plates and plan film (ORWO, East Germany was still producing both of them then) and results were very good.. Unfortunately I do not have those plates any more. The quality of images was excellent, there was no need to enlarge those photos very much so the sharpness was stunning.

[Jarrod]

thanks for the encouraging words :) . as i said we're still experimenting with the settings so the image quality should improve as we learn. im amazed that it still works after all these years.



although i got good results with my less then practical way of proccesing the images, in the future i'd prefer to proccess the photographs properly.

jarrod.

[ballaratdragons]

:clap: excellent!

Will be good to see the pics when you have it worked out!

[bojan]

I think roll film (6x9cm, B&W) can still be found... (Ilford, Kodak..)
I know that some professionals are using it.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/22850-REG/Horseman_22452_6x7_cm_Roll_Film.htm l

[Jarrod]

thanks guys. i'd love to use film, photographic paper is kind of limited to one photo at a time, lol (although it helps keep track of the differant techniques we use). i'll post any good photographs on here so you can get an idea of the progress we're making.

[Jarrod]

had another go today. out of four photographs only one came out well (a very nice picture of myself :P), exposed for 4 seconds. the other three were over exposed, even though one was only exposed for 0.4 seconds. i proccessed the images using my state-of-the-art method :whistle:.

we also made a shocking discovery: the so called "safelights" used in the dark room effect photopaper quite badly. after about half an hour near the light source a piece of photopaper was completly over exposed. we were very surprised.

anyway, thought i should keep you updated with our progress.

jarrod.

yes, the fool in the picture is me.

[Tamtarn]

Great effort Jarrod ...Keep them coming :thumbsup:

[niko]

I have one of these cameras too. Haven't used it for a few years but from memory the film is referred to as 120 and can be found in colour and black & white. Mind you the digital revolution may have put paid to that, as I said it was a few years ago.

niko

[okiscopey]

Quote: "we also made a shocking discovery: the so called "safelights" used in the dark room effect photopaper quite badly. after about half an hour near the light source a piece of photopaper was completly over exposed. we were very surprised."


Half an hour! :eyepop:

Black-and-white enlarging paper usually starts fogging within a few minutes even under dim, indirect safelighting (which is what you try to achieve in a well-designed darkroom). If the paper's been exposed in a camera or under an enlarger (and thus carrying a latent image before processing) it's even more sensitive to these mis-named 'safelights' as the initial 'inertia' of the paper's response has been overcome. Also, there can be a mis-match between the type of paper and the type of safelight. Modern multigrade paper needs an orangey colour (e.g. S902 for Ilford Multigrade) rather than the traditional yellow 'OB'.
Red light affects b/w photo paper the least (given that the paper is primarily blue-sensitive), but you still can't exposethe paper to direct light for half an hour and expect it to survive!

Keep up the good work!

[ispom]

very interesting idea Jarrod,
I also have still such a camera ...
but my darkroom is long forgotten :(

[Jarrod]

i honestly never knew that "safelights" could have such a strong effect. i expected them to slightly effect the photopaper, but not make the paper go black!

anyway, we had another go today. took some pictures just to test different exposure times, nothing worth posting.

my main reason for posting is regarding using the old camera for astrophotography. im wondering if B/W photographic paper would be sensitive enough to record startrails? i don't know the exact type of photogrphic paper, all i know is that its B/W.

thanks for all your positive feedback,

Jarrod.

[Jarrod]

i took an hour long exposure of the sky last night, but only jupiter showed up in the photograph.

jarrod

[Jarrod]

I HAVE A SCANNER!!! :cool:

well i had a scanner all along, but i couldnt find the software for it. i downloaded the software for it today. now anything i post will be of the highest quality possible (visually i mean, not 149kb in size!). and i can't have three posts in a row without providing a photograph!

here's one i took today: 5 second exposure. a bit over exposed, a bit of an angle, but i like the effect.

jarrod.

btw: i know this one's a bit pixilated, im still working out the settings on the scanner.

[bojan]

Photopaper is not nearly sensitive enough... And yes, while processing you should use only dim, RED light, anything else (orange or whatever) contains too much short wavelengths paper is sensitive to... Red perspex is OK, with the 10W incandescent bulb... Maybe red LED are also OK, but I am not sure, never tried them.
If I remember correctly, the sensitivity of photo paper is ~9DIN... or is it 3DIN?
17DIN is 100ASA. Every 3 DIN less is half of the ASA number... That means paper has ~25ASA (or 6 ASA?).

Considering above, I think you have to find film of decent sensitivity if you want to do astro-photography with this camera.

[acropolite]

I've got one too, mine's a slightly larger Folding pocket camera 3A, for those interested here is a link to the 1A (http://www.cosmonet.org/camera/kodakno1_e.htm)and the 3A. (http://www.vintagephoto.tv/3afpk.shtml) The 3A took actual postcard size negatives (3 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches) , how they ever called it a pocket camera is beyond me.:camera:

[Benny L]

roll film is still alive and well. but i will think you will find that the film used in these kind of cameras is 2-3mm smaller than the standard 120/220 film available today.. might be wrong though should be interesting to see if it fits