Portable-darkroom . . .

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MartinP

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To reassure all the people concerned about the complexity of setting up an almost laboratory-grade darkroom to start with - here is a link of what can be done at the other, still effective, extreme...

Portable-darkroom link

:cool:
 
I love the last line:

o.gif

"I don't think there is any future in this business. I haven't trained any of my children. They all have much better jobs."
Click to expand...
:D
 
And I forgot to mention the mystical influence of the German camera manufacturers . . the guy says the camera was designed in Germany
:)
 
Double Negative said:
I have to wonder... What parts of a pinhole would you need to rebuild?! ;)
Click to expand...

I'm a paper negative/pinhole/glass lens shooter, and I've studied the attached article with interest. Contrary to the article, I believe the camera in question uses a glass lens stopped down to a tiny aperture, for wide DOF and exposure times much shorter than true pinhole. There also appears to be a focus mechanism in one of the article's images.

FYI, many so-called "pinhole" cameras from the 19th century were actually stopped-down glass lenses, not true pinhole. And many advertisements for so-called "pinhole video cameras" (for surveillance purposes, no doubt) are also obviously stopped-down glass lenses, not true pinhole.

The picture in the article showing a freshly processed paper negative seems to indicate a relatively fast shutter speed, and sharpness better than what a true pinhole alone can yield on a small negative; and also that the size of the camera being outstandingly larger than the size of the resulting negatives is because the camera also serves as the darkroom for processing and contact printing. The photographer reaches his arm inside, from the back, with a cloth keeping stray light out. I'm assuming there's a light trap labyrinth of sorts inside the box, permitting his arm to get to the dark portion of the camera without fogging the slow paper negative media. Containers inside this dark chamber permit processing the negative directly after exposure. I'm not even certain if fixer is used for the paper neg, just a water rinse after acid stop, as the immediate purpose for the paper negative is contact printing for the positive print.

I'm also assuming lots of chemical spills inside the camera over time necessitate it be repaired frequently.

I would be interesting to build something like this.

~Joe
 
Interesting article. I saw something like this in an old camera magazine, but it was just a photo of the photographer at work, it did not show how he did what he did. It was very old - I did not know that such cameras and processes were still being used.

I found this patent, which is kind of neat...

FILM DEVELOPING CAMERA
 
Photographer in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1976

Must have been a similar type of camera. The picture came out wet, if I remember it right. Don't know, where the picture he took of me is now. If I can find it, I will post it here, too.
 

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"Fotografo minutero"

"Fotografo minutero"

Hello, interesting topic for a thread
I saw a similar photographer in Havana, last Summer
http://public.fotki.com/BlueWind/fotografo-minutero/
When he saw my Zorky he immediately identified it as a "Cámara soviética". We ended talking about Zenits -and he knew what he was talking about.
I remember seeing these street photographers here in Portugal a few decades ago. Unfortunately they are a vanishig species...
Happy New Year
Joao
 
It has a glass barrel lens, and focusing rail (bellows) but no shutter. Just like the studio cameras of the 1890s.

Interesting article about what can be done with very little.
 
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