Ensign and Old film

I found this Kodak 120 film inside of a junk Ensign camera. Camera itself may be 70 years old and the film might be as old as 60 ? years. —– the reason why I said not 70 years old was, when the film was developed, the image was very foggy = I guessed, it must be caused by the dirty lens (hence it was a junk) = Film was shot long after the camera lens became a foggy junk. (To clean the lens, I use Methylated Spirit. Never use Surgical alcohol which leaves skin cream, nor White Spirit which may melt some plastic and paint)

As I wrote before, this camera has almost no control, other than winding a film and click the shutter (of which the shutter duration was only known to be as Inst, or Time (B). = no Iris or any focus control. ——- Yet still, the developed old film showed rather consistent exposure (despite they were severely fogged) = may be the shots were made under the same hazy sun (very little shadow) on the well customised landscape.

No sharp detail though, the atmosphere of the time is certainly there.

To test the camera, I loaded the camera with a fresh Ilford FP-4 film, ISO 125 (I got it from the Photographer’s Gallery shop for £5 —– Jessop like shop doesn’t sell B/W film any more, not mention 120 films) and I exposed the film with the different lighting condition while making each record. (Such as the light level of what Sony A7R with its 40mm lens tells under F8 setting = I guessed the “Inst” of Ensign shutter was about 1/25 Sec’ and if A7R said 1/10 — give a click twice for the same image (while the camera was fixed on a tripod).

It seems, this lens has no defined focus in anywhere.

— (Was the theory. But as my mind was diverted to check the exposure reading in the A7R and to write the record down, I made double exposure mistake = the test was a mess. 😀 —– And I realised that I was neither a Zen Master. 😀 )

(Development of the films were done by D-76, 1+1, 20 degree C, 11 min’, 10 second agitation on every min’ )

Forget academic talk or Otaku taste kind. See what you can see on front. People like dirty old man likes pretty image, like “Miss— kind”. What’s wrong with it ? 😀

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