PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Apr 6, 2011 13:23:17 GMT -5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wonderful results from your pinhole camera, Col. And 35mm panoramic to boot! Much, much better than my one and only schoolboy attempt using a cardboard box and 6x9cm ortho glass plates developed in "Pactum" Metol-Quinol by inspection with a ruby lamp safelight (yes, you could still buy the plates in the late 1930s). The whole class made them as a combined crafts and chemistry project. Some of the lads got quite good pictures, but mine were terrible; fuzzy and marred by light leaks. I gave up in disgust, and it almost put me off photography for good, but I got an Ensign box camera for my 10th birthday and used Selo(Ilford) ortho film developed again in Metol-Quinol by inspection using the see-saw method and fixed in plain hypo. I printed the negs on POP (Printing Out Paper), and the results started a life-long hobby of photography. I think I read every book the library had on photography, much of it way above my head at the time, but I gradually learned until the war put a stop to film production for civilian use in 1940. I took it up again when I was in the RAF and could scrounge end-of-roll lengths of aerial reconnaissance film which I cut down to 127 size in the station darkroom and loaded into old backing paper and spools. I develped these in the darkroom's deep tanks and printed them with the help of a corporal technician. You still couldn't buy film in the shops, so pre-war cameras were being almost given away. I bought a 1930 Nagel Ranca for a few shillings in a shop in Hawarden in Cheshire. Lovely little camera, wish I still had it. You can see some of the results on my website www.peterwallage.com/ Go to Picture Galleries and click on 1940s. The Ranca pictures are the last three in the row. BTW, in case anyone queries my "about 1/10th sec" for the Lancaster picture saying that the Ranca didn't have a 1/10th sec setting, it was the "fastest" speed I could get using the B setting. How did other people here start? PeterW |
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Post by John Farrell on Apr 6, 2011 14:52:18 GMT -5
I bought an Agfa Isomat Rapid in 1969, and loaded casettes with Ilford film cut down from 36 exposure rolls. (I used a wardrobe at night as a darkroom for loading the casettes). I used the Otago university photographic society darkrooms to print the negatives. After a year or so I got a Zenit 3m.
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Post by Peltigera on Apr 6, 2011 15:14:45 GMT -5
How did other people here start? PeterW I saw an Agfa folding camera in a junk shop. It didn't have a viewfinder, just a wire frame - never been sure if it was meant to be like that or if it had lost most of the viewfinder. It worked! When I was rich (ie when I started work) I bought a Zenit E which was amazing - I once dropped it when coming downstairs on a moving bus - it bounced down the remaining stairs and out onto the road. Still worked fine - not sure I should try that with my Canon digital! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2011 16:09:58 GMT -5
I was deeply involved in photography from about age 10 until my early 40s. Then I switched to video in the mid '80s when our kids were in school sports and didn't touch a "real" camera again until early 2002. I got interested in the FSU cameras on Ebay. Then I got a used Nikon FM and an FE to shoot our daughter's wedding on Maui (cheaper than hiring someone). Ended up picking up more Soviet gear and some of the Nikon stuff I couldn't afford when it was new. Finally in 2007 I got a used Nikon D100 to take on our trip to Europe and have been pretty much digital since although I still have my Soviet gear plus a Contax II and several Nikon Film bodies.
W.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Apr 6, 2011 16:23:38 GMT -5
Not quite the start, but an early photo circa 1958 (I did "publish" this a while ago on here):  I wouldn't know exactly how/when I started, but I do remember making a pin hole camera and doing "ghost" photos with the box camera fairly early on. |
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Post by colray on Apr 6, 2011 21:11:52 GMT -5
Like Peter I started at school with pinhole camera glass plates and POP paper. My first camera was made in Germany haven't a clue of the make used 127 film.. in those days you could still purchase the odd roll of Orthochromatic film so developing in dishes under the red safe-light was the easy way. Photographic work .. started the photographic adventure with Dufay Colour Film factory working in the testing laboratory.. Over the years have been stuck in the darkroom worked for a couple big name photographers and a few not so! .. owned my own colour lab..done the photography for several books and have been involved in self publishing... now spend some of my time posting here  |
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Post by Randy on Apr 6, 2011 22:09:15 GMT -5
Brownie Hawkeye, and my first real new camera was a Pentax Spotmatic in 1968. Still have the Pentax.
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Post by tsiya on Apr 7, 2011 2:32:02 GMT -5
I set up a darkroom in the attic when I was about 11, that would have been 1953. I had a little box camera of some kind, can't recall what it was.. I could buy Kodak Tri Chem packs from a shop near my home. I started with a cardboard box, a pane of glass and a lightbulb for a contact printer, Later my dad bought me a nice set from Sears including an enlarger and tank to develop film. I'd gone a long time just making prints from negatives without taking on film.
I stained the plaster in the hall with spilled chemicals and my mother was losing enthusiasm for my project. As I discovered girls I just gradually drifted away.
I always had some kind of basic 35mm around for snapshots after that but really got going again when I retired about 10 years ago. I bought a little Kodak digital, then an Olympus C4000Z and things have been nonstop since.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 7, 2011 10:25:37 GMT -5
There was this ovum and a speedy spermatozoon.
They met and I started.
Mickey
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Post by olroy2044 on Apr 8, 2011 10:55:30 GMT -5
I took my first pictures with my Mom's Target Six Twenty box camera at about 6 or 7 years of age. I wanted my own camera, so started collecting Sugar Daddy candy bar wrappers. When I had enough, I added a dime to them, and mailed the whole mess off (with a 3 cent stamp!!) and got my first camera.  This picture is of one I found on E-Bay. Mine went to Mickey's land of "Somewhere." The prototypical plastic fantastic! 828 film, no lens, push the shutter release down for one shot, then up for the next. My sister gave me her "Traveler" (?) 620 film folder, and I used that for several years, including a trip to the Seattle World's Fair. The bellows eventually developed light leaks. I had those cameras, packed in a box, until they disappeared during our move to our first apartment. When the old folder gave up the ghost, I went into Royal Camera Shop in San Jose, Ca. with my first Income Tax refund check ($65.00) and asked the clerk for the best camera I could get for that amount. I was 16 years old. I have been forever grateful to that clerk. He passed up all the shiny new cameras in the case, and sold me a complete kit consisting of a pristine, used Zeiss Ikon Contaflex II, (with a beautiful leather case) Tilt-a-Mite flash, manual, and a basic "how to" book. He threw in 3 rolls of High-Speed Ektachrome, and a leaflet showing what was needed to process it at home. He kept the price within the amount of that check. The rest, as they say, is history! Roy |
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photax
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Post by photax on Apr 8, 2011 14:02:05 GMT -5
I started with a Agfa 126 cartridge camera at the age of 7 or 8, later I got a Agfa Optima 1035 for 35mm film with a 2.8/40 lens. My first SLR was a used Chinon with M-42 mount, followed by a Minolta, Pentax Spotmatic and a Nikon EM. At the age of 16 or 17 I bought a used Rolleiflex 2.8F. My first collectors camera was a Leica 1, which I got from my grandfather and also a 1930`s Leitz enlarger. Spent many hours in the darkroom ( bathroom ). But honestly, I dont miss the smell of the chemicals...
MIK
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Post by colray on Apr 8, 2011 18:58:08 GMT -5
" I dont miss the smell of the chemicals" Ditto |
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Apr 9, 2011 2:57:56 GMT -5
"i don't miss the smell of the chemicals", but photography has lost much of the sense of anticipation and excitement that accompanied old style photography. Your pinhole camera brings that, the sense of anticipation and excitement that is, back - and I bet you had to use chemicals!
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Post by nikonbob on Apr 9, 2011 9:45:34 GMT -5
I gave up gun collecting/shooting/hunting about 20 years ago because of the last round of gun control legislation. Just a PIA to put up with and people would just quiver at the mere sight of a gun. Did a change of direction to camera collecting and photography but wouldn't you know it, people today seem to quiver at the mere sight of a camera. You know the pervert thing. I give up, you can't win. Anyway, I don't regret the change of direction.
Bob
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 10, 2011 7:45:48 GMT -5
Dave, "i don't miss the smell of the chemicals" I COMPLETELY AGREE. but photography has lost much of the sense of anticipation and excitement that accompanied old style photography. I COMPLETELY DISAGREE. IT IS NOW MORE EXCITING AND VERSATILE THAN EVER. Your pinhole camera brings that, the sense of anticipation and excitement that is, back - and I bet you had to use chemicals! Mickey |
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