Vintage camera reviews, repairs and photography blog
This post shows the procedure for removing the Copal MXV shutter from the Yashica 635 medium format film camera which you may need to do if either the shutter speeds or self timer unit are not working correctly. I bought my Yashica 635 a few days ago from a seller on eBay, but the reason I got it was a bit different from the norm. I was contacted by someone who had a Yashica 635 which belonged to her father […]
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A couple of weeks ago I picked up a nice Ciro-flex Twin Lens Reflex camera from eBay for a few pounds which was described as needing a little bit of work. One of the issues described was that the aperture blades were a bit stiff to adjust and when I received the camera I discovered (as I suspected) that the aperture blades needed to be cleaned up to remove some old grease and dirt which was sticking them together. This […]
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This morning I took my Weltaflex TLR with me for a walk round a rather cold and frosty Fairlands Park in Stevenage to try it out. At first I considered loading a roll of Provia 100F into the Weltaflex because I’ve received a 5 pack of this medium format slide film as a birthday present and I’m dying to give it a go, but in the end I decided that it makes more sense to try the camera out with […]
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This post describes a Zeiss Ikon Nettar II folding camera which was made in about 1949 and takes type 120 film. I’ve identified it as type 517/16 by referring to the camera wiki site. Zeiss Ikon Nettar II Images My Zeiss Ikon Nettar II Camera I acquired this camera in a slightly different way than I normally find cameras because I bought it from a charity shop rather than from eBay. I suspect that the price I paid of £5 […]
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Over the last few weeks I’ve been carrying my Voigtlander Bessa 66 folding camera with me loaded with a reel of Ilford HP5+ in order to test how the camera performs. Being a very old camera (made sometime between 1938 and 1941) it’s always possible that there is a leak in the bellows, a problem with the lens or some other issue and there may be nothing on the negatives at all, but that moment of extracting the developed film […]
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This is the index to my vintage camera collection.
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This Ensign Selfix 20 camera was made in the UK in the early 1930’s by Ensign & Co, and takes 8 pictures on a roll of 120 film, each picture being approx 6cm x 9cm. Ensign Selfix 20 Images My Ensign Selfix 20 Camera I picked up this camera from eBay for only a few pounds and bought it because I’d been impressed with the quality of my Selfix 1620 and wanted to see what other cameras made by Ensign […]
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A few weeks ago I wrote a post about which medium format camera to buy myself for a Christmas present. At the time I had narrowed my choice down to a few models and was deciding which I should settle on. Well, after a lot of deliberation, internet research, pouring over specs and countless online searches for second-hand cameras, I finally made a decision and a couple of days ago I bought a Bronica ETRsi 645 format camera. Bronica ETRsi Images […]
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The Voigtlander Bessa 66 is a very compact, 6cm x 6cm, folding camera which takes 12 pictures on a roll of 120 or 620 film. It was made in Germany sometime between 1938 and 1941. Voigtlander Bessa 66 Images My Voigtlander Bessa 66 Camera Unfortunately my camera has a small amount of damage. There should be a fold out yellow filter attached to the front of the lens but it’s been snapped off sometime over the course of the last […]
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This Agilux Agifold camera is unique in my collection by being completely and wholly made in the UK. I believe every other vintage camera I own has all, or at least some parts (shutter normally) made in Japan or Germany, but every part of the Agilux was made in a factory in Croydon. Agilux Agifold Images My Agifold Agilux Camera I bought my camera with a couple of known faults. The rangefinder view was apparently quite dull and difficult to […]
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I’ve developed some black & white pictures from my test run with a selfix 1620 folding camera today, and this post is to publish the resultant scans. As I said in my previous post, I used Illford ID-11 instead of caffinol for the development, and the negatives looked quite good when I first saw them as they came out of the tank. Well, I’m pleased to say that I’m still happy with them now I’ve scanned them and had a […]
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Last week I wrote a post about my Ensign Selfix 1620 folding camera and mentioned in that post how I’d loaded it with some FP4+ to take some sample pictures. Well, this week I developed the film, having finished taking the test pictures last weekend. Although it’s not the first film I’ve developed, it is the first time I’ve developed medium format film, so I thought I’d write this post to contrast the experience to 35mm. Obviously the first part […]
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Ever since I started to have a renewed interest in film photography I’ve had the desire to own a medium format camera. I bought a Pentacon Six with the idea of refurbishing and repairing it, but that project stalled because the shutter assembly is in pretty poor condition and, having seen the quality of the engineering that makes it, I’m not convinced that buying a reasonable unit to replace it is actually good value for money. (I don’t actually class […]
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I recently loaded a roll of FP4+ black & white film in my Selfix 1620 and took it for a spin around the town. Because it’s been a very long time since I took photographs with a medium format folding camera, I thought I’d record my impressions and observations. The first thing I realised quite early on is that you have to do everything manually in order to capture the picture. OK – that’s obvious I suppose, but although I […]
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This Ensign Selfix 16-20 camera is one which I managed to get quite cheaply because it was mis-advertised. The seller on eBay had listed it as ‘Epsilon Ensar Anastigmat Camera’ and there were just two pictures, but by looking carefully at the pictures I could see that the camera was a Selfix 16-20 which I knew would be worth more than the £8.71 I eventually paid for it. Ensign Selfix 16-20 Images My Ensign Selfix 16-20 Camera When I received […]
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