Weapons Of Choice: “Hemingway” 1940 Royal Aristocrat & Hoya lens case converted to pinhole camera
Beneath the long-expired photo paper? A treasure trove of safelight filters and other interesting vintage darkroom accessories.
Hoya Lens Case Pinhole Camera Version 1.0
With my safelight (filter black-taped onto a 6V flashlight and light-sealed) in place, I set up my normal Caffenol-C developing kit, except this time in trays. I used a pocket watch near the safelight to time the development.
Setting the scene for 8 exposures, running back to the darkroom to change papers in the pinhole camera. I used an 8×10″ sheet of each kind I had, cut into 1/4ths.
First shot with a model (Tori). framing’s off, and the pinhole is ragged, but exposure time looks good. This is plain printing paper, so the image is a negative.
So we invert it, to make a B&W positive. This was about 15 sec exposure on the Forte paper, developed in Caffenol-C for 4.5 minutes.
Next I tried the 1974 expired Kodabromide. What came out has no relation to what the lens was pointed at, so I guess it’s well and truly expired. It did develop into an interesting background pattern, though. I steeped this one in Caff-C for over 6 minutes before I gave up on getting a sensible image.
The remaining 3 frames of Forte, exposed at 10 sec, 15 sec and 20 sec, developed in Caff-C for 5 minutes. Turned into a squiggly for your enjoyment. You can see my ghost in frame 2.
And finally, a sewing machine sighting for Adwoa. Let see if she’s still around… (:
Better late… I inherited a low wattage safelight with a broken conical cover so replaced it with a red plastic drinking cup. I think I remember that a cone of light source can give better illumination. There’s a coincidence. Isn’t Tori’s blog monicker Forte?
it is (: