Thursday, May 28, 2009

1930's Ansco Box Camera



I just felt drawn to Value Village about a week and a half ago - wasn't sure why...but here is the reason!

I picked up a box camera for $9.99! It is an Ansco brand, and from my research, it looks like it was made in the 30's. Two big bonuses here - a) It works!, and b) It takes 120 film (which I have). It could have taken 116 or 127 or 620, etc... which I don't have, and you can't readily get any more.

From what I read, it has an aperture of about f/8-f/11 and a shutter of about 1/30 sec. The inside of the camera says to use Ansco Plenachrome film...?
Most sites suggest using a 100 speed film for sunny days. The sunny 16 rule would indicate that a 30 ASA film would be good for a 1/30 sec. shutter at f/16. This would mean 60 ASA at f/11, or 125 ASA at f/8 (assuming the given aperture and shutter speed are correct).

I took it for a test run at the park on a very overcast day. I probably should have used 400 ASA film, but I used 100 and pushed it to 200 in development. Here are a couple of the images:





The shots were scanned on my Epson 4490, and given a contrast boost and some sharpening in post production.

1 comment:

Laura said...

I just found the same camera at an antique store and I am excited to try it out :) Thanks for the post