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Leica M39 screw mount bodies/lenses
David Hughes

David Hughes

David Hughes
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One of the services offered by the weekly magazine "The Amateur Photographer" in the late 30's was an exposure guide. It was published monthly. Here it is for September 1937:

http://idrh.smugmug.com/photos/649689123_faskL-X2.gif

It's a "GIF" by the way.

I'm just sorry I can't add a conversion table for the types of film covered and ISO speeds. Can anyone help with this?

Regards, David
 
David Hughes said:
One of the services offered by the weekly magazine "The Amateur Photographer" in the late 30's was an exposure guide. It was published monthly. Here it is for September 1937:

http://idrh.smugmug.com/photos/649689123_faskL-X2.gif

It's a "GIF" by the way.

I'm just sorry I can't add a conversion table for the types of film covered and ISO speeds. Can anyone help with this?

Regards, David
Click to expand...

Some of those films were around a while, I see the Agfa ISS, and a search should give you an ISO for one, which you might use as a Rosetta Stone to rate the others.

I should recall some of them, but the only roll I have surviving from that era is IFF, probably one of the slowest, highest resolution films made, believe it was ASA 10.

ISS should have been in the same range as Plus X, but am relying on memory.

Now, if you convert for daylight savings time, and the latitude and longitude, plus the date -- you might get more precision. ;-)

Well, there is always latitude of the film to work with.

Regards, John
 
From A History of the 35mm Still Camera, Roger Hicks, The Focal Press 1984 (page 185): please acknowledge if you reproduce it. The speeds are not exact equivalents because there are different criteria and different safety factors, but it's a good guide.

Cheers,

Roger
 

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Thanks

Thanks

Thanks for the replies etc.

I've remembered a copy of the Focal Exposure Chart for the early 1940's was lurking in the collection (thanks to Roger's post) and have tracked down the Ensign Ultrachrome at 28° European Sch'r and, in the "Extra Rapid" group below, Barnet's film at 27° ES.

To confuse the issue it gives Dufaycolor Daylight as 22° for the "Rapid" group... I'd have expected something like 25 or 26° from the page layout.

If anyone's interested the old exposure guides and calculators are the cheapest vintage thing you'll find on ebay. My collection ranges from the Wellcome Guide of 1915 (about 115 to 120 pages) up to the dial things like a circular slide rule. The copies of "Amateur Photographer" are also dirt cheap but you've seldom a date given on ebay. For the guide I scanned look for the first issue of each month.

Regards, David

PS Nearly forgot, sorry: it was a GIF as that was clearer than the jpg and the Tiff was OTT.
 
There's a typo on the chart. 1/50" should be 1/150" of course. Hope they didn't repeat that weekly 😉
 
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