Help with paper speeds

[matthew J Shaw]

Hi all...

My attempts at building up a vintage darkroom are coming on well. My partner came over the other day with a box full of old darkroom stuff she had aquired from the "auction site" for me for the bargain price of £5!!!

Amongst the bits of interest I have ended up with more vintage enlarger lenses, some spare condensers for my enlarger, a nice old easel and some extensions for my enlarger stand.

The most fascinating thing that appears to work is a little box that the enlarger and safelight plug into, there is a dial that turn the enlarger on and the safe light off, vice versa, and a setting to use the exposure timer.
Attached to the box on a fly cable is a meter head, and you can set this under the enlarger and as you turn the time dial and the paper speed dial, it will give you a red / green light metering system until the settings are correct.

Looks a fun little box of tricks, and I am hoping to use it, the problem is, the dial just says paper speed.... does anyone know what papers are what speeds... is this going to be an ISO speed (ilford supply these) or is it likely to be a standalone system?

The equipment is british late '50s, once I've given it a clean I will pop up some pictures... It might be a complete pain to use, but it looks fun, and I'd at least like to be able to try it out...

Thanks

M

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Matthew,

What make? It may be possible to research it, at its introduction, in BJP Almanacs.

This sounds like a fascinating undertaking. Where in the UK are you?

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

IIRC there is no ISO standard for paper speed, at any rate none that is widely in use - if you want to use an ISO meter on paper, they are way down, often somewhere in the 0.01 to 3 ISO range. Darkroom meters generally have a scale for relative calibration only - but a few odd ones will measure illumination (metric or imperial).

 

[Landshark]

We used to call these indicators "arbitrary numbers"
The speed of your paper is tested for proper exposure and then the meter is adjusted to match. Then the meter will give you an exposure based on your standard.

 

[Roger Hicks]

IIRC there is no ISO standard for paper speed, at any rate none that is widely in use - if you want to use an ISO meter on paper, they are way down, often somewhere in the 0.01 to 3 ISO range. Darkroom meters generally have a scale for relative calibration only - but a few odd ones will measure illumination (metric or imperial).

There is an ISO standard, but you're right, it's not in widespread use.

Cheers,

R.

 

[matthew J Shaw]

Hi all

Thanks Sevo, Landshark and Roger...

I have toyed with the machine, now it is clean and tidy and from trial and error with a fixed exposure time and development time, it is easy to establish my own standard for paper, and indeed this method is mentioned in the instructions...

What made me curious is it also refers to the fact that if you use an unknown batch of paper, then simply enter the paper speed, This got me to wonder if the scale set on the dial is calibrated to some kind of standard.

To the best of my knowledge, this and all the rest of the stuff that was in the box was purchased in 1969 (so it has a 10 year head start on me!) and Im guessing its from around that time.

If I have done this right, there should be pictures below:

As some of you may know from my other threads, I am a photographer by trade, and much as I love using the modern digital tools I have at my disposal, I feel they dont have the soul of the film cameras that fired my life long love with the skill.

Im not going to go into the which is better camp... in my opinion neither is, like any tool they are suited for different purposes and uses, and Im fortunate enough to have a large range to choose from.

The whole darkroom thing came about as I have some weird and wonderful cameras that I love to use, and I know they are not optically or mechanically the best, but I love them, and whenever I got the negs from my Edixa for instance printed they all looked "too" sharp, so I dabbled and found a friend who printed some on an old enlarger, and they were just how I remembered my Great uncle's (where my Edixa came from) pictures looking... so I found an enlarger, then driers, then bits and bobs and its just kind of snow balling 🙂

But that said, tinkering about with old photographic equipment is a lovely way to spend the day, so I dont mind it snowballing at all...

Hope the pictures (if you can see them) help and as always, any thoughts would be very welcome.

PS Roger...

I live in sunny Marlow in Buckinghamshire.

 

[matthew J Shaw]

I can never seem to get photos in my posts...

You can see them on flicker here:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54415620@N02/6120321987/in/photostream/


And if you look through the stream, you can also see my Ricoh 500 kit and Koni Omega, 2 of the afore mentioned vintage cameras that have got me building a vintage darkroom...

m