Ilford Sporti

Well, just as I was coming to the end of the cameras I have to test and play with, I received a box full of them. This was inside.

This camera was also sold as the Dracora Digna in Germany and was produced around 1959. It is a simple camera with no exposure lock so there is scope for double exposures or long panoramics by slightly overlapping the shots. Read more about it and other sporti models here. It has zone focusing with a minimum focal distance of 5 feet. There are two aperture settings for f11 for sunny or f9 or f8 for cloudy/flash depending on where you get your information. The shutter speed is fixed at 1/50th. There is a cold shoe with a sync socket on the lens barrel. Plus there is a cable release socket on the shutter button. You can find the manual here.

I loaded mine with an expired Ilford FP4, which seemed fitting, and took it to Saltaire. This is one of my favourite places in the north of England. I usually only go for a couple of hours as that leaves me loads to explore the next time I go, each time I see it a bit more.

Here are 11 of the 12 shots I took, I forgot to reset the zone focusing to infinity on the 12th.

What a super little camera, light, simple, and just works. On the day I went to Saltaire it was very dull and a little wet, there was smoke in the area from a bonfire. I think that added to the photos. It would be interesting to see some shots taken on a brighter day, but this camera has already been spoken for and will be whizzing its way to a new owner soon.

3 thoughts on “Ilford Sporti

  1. Roger B. says:

    I believe the lens is a triplet and is capable of some remarkable bokeh when shot wide open at close subject range.

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