Hunter Gilbert
Here is our Hunter Gilbert, a 120 camera that takes 8 6×9 negatives on a roll of film. It is an amazing piece of early 1950s British engineering, but it is not complicated to use, as it has only two apertures and two shutter speeds – although I couldn’t say what the true measurements are as they are labelled Sunny, Dull, Slow and Fast.
I put some Ilford HP5 through this a few weeks ago and have just now developed the negs (we are re-using yesterday’s Ilfotec LC29) and apart from a fairly splendid light leak (which I think is because of the film counter window not closing fully) the negatives look good. I am actually just glad that this camera took any picture at all, of course I won’t be able to see what sort of pictures it takes until I can scan them in later. Alice processed a roll of film from an Ensign Ranger folding camera too, amazing.
I’m aiming to cross-process a roll of c41 in the LC29 chemicals later, which may or may not work. I bought an Olympus SP35 a while back, but the rangefinder was way off so I had only got through the first ten shots or so of that film. I am not going to bother with the hassle of processing that film properly, so I will take a chance with the chemicals we have and see if there is a shot worth salvaging. It’s a real shame to me because I have wanted a decent SP35 for quite some time and I had to send this one back, they have such a great Zuiko lens.
And on we roll…
Tonight sees us developing two films from cameras that have not yet been film-tested.
Jem’s is from his Hunter Gilbert, and mine from my Ensign Ranger: both extremely handsome, enormously old pieces of kit picked up from eBay for a song.
Fingers crossed!
Day One
We have been building a darkroom in our home for the last few weeks. It has taken time, patience and ingenuity to source the right materials and equipment, but we are just about up and running.
We have maybe 30 working film cameras here, from a First World War Kodak Vest Pocket to a Canon EOS 5; we use them all.
We are currently using a Durst M670 set up for 35mm and we also have an M605 which we will use for medium format printing once we replace the dead transformer. Otherwise we have a very quirky Russian enlarger which ought to be fun to try, and plenty of other interesting old gear which will make an appearance here over the coming months.
