Still life on lockdown

You know things are bad when you start taking photographs of your camera gear.  The sun actually made an appearance last week - briefly - so I quickly got the Sinar 4x5 out and set up a little scene on the garden table.  I say 'quickly' but of course it's all relative - there ain't nothing quick about setting up a 4x5 monorail, that's for sure.  I was worried the light might go, but in the end it stayed bright for a good while...maybe too bright, if anything, as you can see:

Some old gear, via HP5, on Adox MCP paper, light sepia tone

I think I was stopped down to f/22, or f/32 on this one...there isn't much depth of field at the larger apertures at this size.  The camera is the Zeiss 6x9 Nettar I picked up for peanuts at a local auction a while back.  A thing of beauty it is - even if the shutter fails to operate when it's cold, as I found out a couple of times before the lockdown.  Most frustrating when you are out around the coast early morning in freezing conditions with only one camera which then decides not to work and you have to drive back home with nothing to show for your efforts except raw fingers.

If you're interested in the details, it has a Novar-Anastigmat 105mm f/4.5 lens, which stops down to f/22.  Focussing is, of course, not coupled and there is no rangefinder built in - you have to use the one between your ears ;)  The shutter is a Prontor SVS, with 1/300th the fastest speed down to 1s and then B.  Everything seems pretty good on it - speeds sound OK, apertures look fine and while the focussing ring at the front of the lens could be a little smoother it seems to work OK.  There's even a device to prevent double exposures - it only lets you fire the shutter after you've wound on a couple of turns.

The lovely little rangefinder sitting at the front came with the camera, as did the roll of Kodak Verichrome, which was inside it.  There might be something on it, which could be fun to see.  I'm not sending it away, though - I rather like the look of it.  If I home process it I'll re-roll the backing paper onto a spare spool - as I rather like it as a period 'object' to photograph.  The filter, hood and tabletop tripod (Zeiss) were part of the deal as well -  and everything in their original leather cases.

The other camera that came in the same deal was a Kodak Pony 135, which is also in pretty good condition.  The top and bottom plates are metal, while the body is bakelite. There's a Kodak Anaston 44mm f/3.5 lens on it (f/3.5-f/22), with a 4-speed shutter (1/300, 1/100, 1/50, 1/25 and B).  Kodak have tried to make it easy for the user, with markings on the lens to help with exposure.  So if, for example, you have Kodachome loaded on a sunny day, the suggested settings are 1/50s at f/5.6-f/8.  For the faster Ektachrome fillm, f/11 is suggested.  It's a sweet little camera.

I set down a couple of old 35mm film canisters I had from back in the day - including a nice metal one with Kodak embossed on it.

Kodak Pony 135 on the Sinar 4x5 (cropped to square).

Some day soon I'll post some prints from these lovely cameras.