I have not yet managed to take this camera out without having multiple conversations about it with passers-by. Which is unexpected – I’m in Berlin after all – but it is a lot of fun. People like it, is the verdict. Someone estimated it at 3000+€, which is about 2500€ too much, but I gather from that that my restoration wasn’t too bad 🙂 It’s not going to get sold though, it’s going to get used. And it’s not actually *that* slow to use, maybe 5 minutes per picture or so. It’s just heavy. I’m not feeling quite nerdy enough yet to get a hiking trailer but that would help a lot.
The paper negative reversal exposure tests continued, and I think I’ve pretty much got it. All on Ilford MGRC paper, first two with the 00-grade filter. First one at ISO 1.6+2 stops (so ISO 0.4), second one plus three stops (ISO 0.2). Both on a partly-cloudy day, but in the afternoon sun. First one is a tiny bit too dark maybe, second one a bit too bright, so somewhere in between those seems right. There’s not a whole lot of dynamic range to play with, that’s for sure.
I’ve also now almost run out of my paper and Ilford doesn’t make the exact one anymore I think, so that was very useful 🙂
Without the filter I also took two more pictures, at ISO 1.6 and 0.8, but these were both much too bright in real life. The scanner/curve-tool rescued them somewhat but I’m doing reversals because they are actual pictures in real life so that’s cheating 🙂 So it’s more like ISO 3 without a filter – again, for reversals only. For negatives, ISO 6 seems right, maybe a bit more.
Wooden tailboard with a ~1897 18×24 Rodenstock Bichromat – 1 and 2 at maximum aperture (f18, handful of seconds), 3 at f25 and wrong focus (~30s), 4 at minimum aperture (f51, 2 minutes).
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