Holga, Toy, Charity Shop, Car Boot and other Bargains (film only please)

I went to a couple of car boot sales today and completely struck out. The only cameras I found were APS and even know I like bulk loading odd ebay films, I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of working out how to hand roll APS film, I did that with 110 and 16mm subminiature cameras, too much time. I did hit a few charity shops and found this for 50p.

A lot of the SLR's I shoot feel a lot like shooting digital and don't slow me down, as people often say with film. It's always fun to shoot toy cameras and oddities as they feel different and the images they produce range from questionable/kind of interesting to yeah I kind of like that.

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I went to a couple of car boot sales today and completely struck out. The only cameras I found were APS and even know I like bulk loading odd ebay films, I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of working out how to hand roll APS film, I did that with 110 and 16mm subminiature cameras, too much time. I did hit a few charity shops and found this for 50p.

A lot of the SLR's I shoot feel a lot like shooting digital and don't slow me down, as people often say with film. It's always fun to shoot toy cameras and oddities as they feel different and the images they produce range from questionable/kind of interesting to yeah I kind of like that.

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Interesting camera - take a look at https://www.lomography.com/magazine/27228-imagetech-3d-fx-three-eyed-alien-mutant-camera to see the effects it will do with a little computing assistance
 
Not a car boot but at Leek open air antique and collectable fair (on every Saturday) a Canon Demi EE17 in working order for a Tenner.

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So a Shutter Speed priority automatic aperture or fully manual half frame - f/1.7 30mm lens and focus icons in viewfinder (scale on lens). Had been fitted into a Akarelle leather case
 
Car boot sale find. I've never shot one of the pop series and from the look and feel it very much feels like a cheap point and shoot, but it was 50p and I've always liked Hexanon branded slr lenses.
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Car boot sale find. I've never shot one of the pop series and from the look and feel it very much feels like a cheap point and shoot, but it was 50p and I've always liked Hexanon branded slr lenses.
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I had one of those (I might still have it somewhere in fact). The battery compartment on mine was corroded making normal use impossible, but I found out that, as it has a fixed shutter speed, by using various ASA settings and having the flash switch on or off, you can control the aperture manually and effectively use it with Sunny 16 settings.

I only ever shot one roll through it due to the faff involved, but it was nice and sharp.
 
Car boot sale find. I've never shot one of the pop series and from the look and feel it very much feels like a cheap point and shoot, but it was 50p and I've always liked Hexanon branded slr lenses.
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I seem to recall those go for a few quid on eBay, especially the red ones, so if you don't like it then you can probably turn a good profit on it.
 
I had one of those (I might still have it somewhere in fact). The battery compartment on mine was corroded making normal use impossible, but I found out that, as it has a fixed shutter speed, by using various ASA settings and having the flash switch on or off, you can control the aperture manually and effectively use it with Sunny 16 settings.

I only ever shot one roll through it due to the faff involved, but it was nice and sharp.

That's good to know. This one had a battery leak at some point, but I've cleaned it out with isopropyl alcohol and its working fine. Good to know its sharp, I quite like these type of fixed focus cameras for shooting family/friend stuff as they are basic/near impossible to screw up. I've made up a little 10 exposure roll of Eastman Kodak Double X and the same of Vision 3, so it will be interesting to check out the results.

I seem to recall those go for a few quid on eBay, especially the red ones, so if you don't like it then you can probably turn a good profit on it.

That's always nice to know. I sold a lot of cameras a few months back to fund a Leica Q2 and a 50mm Summilux for another camera. Its crazy what some of the point and shots go for now. Charity shops have cottoned on to camera prices now, as you mostly see all their stuff on ebay.
 
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I seem to recall those go for a few quid on eBay, especially the red ones, so if you don't like it then you can probably turn a good profit on it.

Looks like they sell for £30-£50 . . .

I have a Yashica T4 that I bought for 50p. I really must get around to developing the test roll, before the bottom falls out of the Hipster Point And Shoot market.
 
Looks like they sell for £30-£50 . . .

I have a Yashica T4 that I bought for 50p. I really must get around to developing the test roll, before the bottom falls out of the Hipster Point And Shoot market.

YouTube and Instagram has pushed up anything with a Carl Zeiss or Canon logo. The Canon AE-1 Programs and Pentax K1000 I've sold got bid up to a silly price. Anything Contax, the Olympics XA line has been getting pushed up, Nikon F100 is going up for some reason. Bessa R stuff has just gotten silly, same as the Xpan, Pentax 6x7 too. It's all YouTube and Instagram hype.
 
Nikon EM with the 50mm f1.8, £7 and a Holga 120, boxed with all the gubbins and a roll of film for a fiver, i grabbed that without looking, should have looked closer cos there were 2 batteries in that had leaked and it was full of acidic dust. OOOPS, nearly binned it but out of annoyance i thought i might see if it'd clean up, so a few minutes later with a pack of anti bac wipes it's as bad as new and working and even flashing. I also picked up a minolta 35mm compact with 6 rolls of expired neg film for £4.
I left a tatty Yashica for someone else. I really like the Nikon and will probably even use it.
 
Another £1 find (Canon AF35M), needs a bit of a clean but fully working. Anyway f2.8/AF/Manual ISO in a point and shoot is always nice.
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I bought an AF35M II for a quid last year. It was very sharp. I sold it on though as the slightly primitive focus lock function was a bit of a faff and it was louder than hell in use. Nice camera though.
 
Another £1 find (Canon AF35M), needs a bit of a clean but fully working. Anyway f2.8/AF/Manual ISO in a point and shoot is always nice.

Cracking find. I had one for £3, shot a couple of really nice rolls (the lens is super sharp) and sold it for £40. I see they go for even more now.
 
Saw a Gnome pixie at the bootie and immediately thought h'mm now who would be the sort of member that would use and enjoy it...well fishy fish is into Holga it could be him o_O:D
 
Picked up an om20 with 50mm 1.8 lens for a tenner from a charity shop. Change of battery’s and seems to be ok so will see how it goes.

taken the first few shots and wondering if i have lined film up over mirror correctly, will find out in due course I guess.....
 
My auntie came good at a car-boot - A Ricoh Mate, fully manual rangefinder, 45mm f2.8 in really good condition.
 
Picked up an Olympus AF-1 for £1.00 from Cash Converters. Unfortunately it takes a DL223a/CR-P2 battery which isn't cheap.

I also have a Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.7 for my Contax 137MD awaiting collection and a Pentax SMC FA 50mm f1.4 on the way. I also have a Pentax MZ-3 with 35-80mm on the way.
 
I guess the colour enlarger I brought on Saturday qualifies.
It came with all the filters a 50mm lens, focus finder, frames & a tray for £5 :jawdrop:

The 400mm/5.6 AF prime I got at the same time, may be a film era lens but I'll probably only use on digital...
 
The Pentax MZ-3 and SMC-FA 50mm f1.4 arrived today. It has a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 loaded and when I put the batteries in it shows frame 1 so it looks like it's unused. The camera was sold as untested but works fine.

I don't think I've shot a slide film since the 80's. So we'll see how it goes.
 
Almost forgot, I also picked up a Tamron SP 28-135 mm f4-4.5 Adaptall-2 model 28A lens while I was out. I got it from Charles Eagle cameras in Sunderland for £49. It came without a mount but it has a rear cap and he went and found me a case for it. It's not a Tamron case but it looks brand new.

He also had several mounts but they were all ones that I already had more than one of.
 
Recently purchased a Canon EOS650 plus accessories for£5, the filters most interesting particularly the Split Field and Dual Cross
 
@Manwithacam Steve, if you get to a point where you want to re-sell the MZ-3, please drop me a line. I'd like to add one to my Pentax collection, especially as it's the last model I used actively before going digital. I have an MZ-5 that works nicely, but the 3 is a little smaller and I was chuffed with it when I got it - shame I sold mine when I lapsed interest in photography for a few years.
 
@Manwithacam Steve, if you get to a point where you want to re-sell the MZ-3, please drop me a line. I'd like to add one to my Pentax collection, especially as it's the last model I used actively before going digital. I have an MZ-5 that works nicely, but the 3 is a little smaller and I was chuffed with it when I got it - shame I sold mine when I lapsed interest in photography for a few years.
Hi Lindsay, I've only ever sold a couple of my cameras and they were ones I had multiples of. When I got mine off eBay there were a couple of others on there too. Including one black bodied one for $85.
 
Today I added a Voigtländer Bessa I to the collection. It came complete with case, and when I opened it to check to see if the 6x4 plate was in place, which was, I found a roll of Crumière Super Aviachrom Ortho which appears to be unexposed.

The film has Début/Start on the backing paper making me think it has never been used and wound on.View attachment 2570021570296189939.jpg
 
Today I added a Voigtländer Bessa I to the collection. It came complete with case, and when I opened it to check to see if the 6x4 plate was in place, which was, I found a roll of Crumière Super Aviachrom Ortho which appears to be unexposed.

The film has Début/Start on the backing paper making me think it has never been used and wound on.View attachment 257002View attachment 257003

Shoot it!

Off top of my head I I'd hazard a guess to say the film may be 50 years old or so.

Typically I would agree with what is often scene as the "norm" compensation for old film, that being to allow a stop for every decade, however having shot more than one roll of film ( differing formats) dating sometimes as far back as 1949, i found that compensation "ruling" was too much in reality although I did get acceptable results so I would go for a full stop of comp for the first 2 decades then a third to a half stop thereafter, thus say it dates back to 1950, allow approx 4 stops comp.
If you dev yourself ( or have a friend to do it, then semi stand for an hour 1.100 solution of any b&w neg fil; developer with agitation at the beginning, then at half hour.

Expect very contrasty results mindst!!
 
There are adverts between 1935 and 1969 for this film though I believe the camera was only made between 1950 and 57. The film has no indication of it's speed. What I have seen in the adverts is just marked 28° which equates to 500ISO.
 
In that case try shooting it at about 1/50 ( no faster)...….I reckon you'll be within a stop / stop and half of it's present " speed which is easily tolerable with b&w film old or new.

The results will be contrasty regardless o f deving methods, there could well be fogging to the film, imprints from the backing paper on the negs and possible grain the size of dinner plates but it's goota be worth a blast even if nothing comes from it
 
There are adverts between 1935 and 1969 for this film though I believe the camera was only made between 1950 and 57. The film has no indication of it's speed. What I have seen in the adverts is just marked 28° which equates to 500ISO.

I'm no expert, but this chart might indicate it to be 40 or 50asa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed#/media/File:ASA_DIN_conversion_table.jpg

If this is the case (and I'm not guaranteeing it is!), then I'd shoot it at 6asa (overexposed by approx half a stop per decade of expiry).

500ISO seems a little fast for a film from the 1950s (although I know that there were faster films available then).
 
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I assumed it was a typo for 50 ISO. A 1961 catalogue I checked has a table of equivalent film speeds, and there are three possible film speed systems where 28 would be a reasonable number. They gave ASA values of between 32 and 40, 40, and 50.

Those with long memories will recall that the ASA speeds doubled overnight in 1960/61 because the standards authority decided to scrap a 1 stop safety margin that had previously been built in. So depending on the date, the 50 ASA (approx) speed could be doubled.
 
I don't really think it's worth using anyway. I have FP4 and XP2 handy. It was more that I'd never even heard of the company, Crumière, until today.

I'll give the Voigtländer a try on 6x4 and 6x9 and see how it goes.
 
After taking a closer look at the film it turned out to be all backing paper. I didn't think there seemed to be much on the roll and there was none at all [emoji1]. At least I don't have to worry about what speed to shoot it at.

I wonder if the previous owner kept a roll of backing paper from each film he shot as there was a roll of exposed Ektachrome in the cabinet where the camera was, that I'm now thinking could be backing paper.
 
having seen more than my fair share of "empty" 120 rolls i was about to say it looks a bit underweight.
 
After taking a closer look at the film it turned out to be all backing paper. I didn't think there seemed to be much on the roll and there was none at all [emoji1]. At least I don't have to worry about what speed to shoot it at.

I wonder if the previous owner kept a roll of backing paper from each film he shot as there was a roll of exposed Ektachrome in the cabinet where the camera was, that I'm now thinking could be backing paper.
Perhaps a 'test roll' kept to run through cameras to check everything was working as it should? I'm sure most of us have such a roll in 35mm for testing 'new' cameras.
 
I got a minolta md 50mm 1.7, a pentax k fit kiron 28mm f/2 and another minolta, a 28mm f/2.8.

The 28mm minolta is... Not great!

The kiron I've not tested but it's a gorgeous piece of glass. The focus ring is a little bit gritty... Feels like the lube has dried.

The 50mm 1.7 is stunning. I use it on my fuji. Cost all of £2 per lens. I prefer it to the much sharper fuji 50mm f/2, it's just lower contrast which makes for easier images for me.
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