Tag Archives: adapter

Duaflex TtV Experiment

Books and Stuff, Photo Post, Thoughts and Musings, , , , , ,

Well, I seem to have lots of time on my hands so I thought I would try some of the things in this book I received as a Christmas present.

The first project I decided to try was this one…

Seeing as I have a few box cameras and the one specifically mentioned in the article, it seemed the best place to start. Taking photos through the viewfinder with a digital camera. And that is what TtV means, Through The Viewfinder. I had also read about the process on this blog.

First though, I needed to clean the viewfinder of my Duaflex. I could find instructions online for other versions of the Duaflex, but not the one I had. So I just looked for the screws and undid them until I had access. After I had finished I found this tutorial. I wish I had found it first as I didn’t know how to remove the front plate though managed to get access to the mirror anyway. Sorry no photos of that, I forgot.

Then I used some random cardboard I had in the house. At first I tried my Sony a37 to take the photos, but it was tricky to focus as the auto focusing would not work. I put it in manual focus mode and moved the camera up and down the tube until focus was achieved. In the end I gave up and switched to my phone camera. That focused without issue.

The resulting photos were reversed, I could digitally correct that, but I wasn’t bother by it.

Here are some of the results I got from the Sony a37, of course I am restricted to my house and garden.

And here are some results from my phone camera, a Huawei P20 pro.

Well, that was a nice use of the day. I much prefer the black and white ones I originally got from this camera, on film. But it has been an interesting experiment, I don’t think I will repeat it.

I will try a few more ideas from the book, though you might get tired of photos from my garden 🙂

Kodak Instamatic 33

home processing, Junk Camera Finds, , , , , , , , ,

This camera came as part of a job lot and it meant, finally, I had a clean instamatic. One that seemed to work perfectly, one that I might be able to use the Fakmatic in with relative ease. Having previously tried the adapter and failed, I had given it away. I cheekily asked the receiver if there was a possibility of getting it back and voila, another chance for the 3D printed device. There are other ways of using instamatic cameras, like reusing an old cartridge or adapting a 35mm roll as in this video but I really wanted to use the fakmatic.

This instamatic was manufactured from 1968 to 1973 and accepted 126 cartridge film. It has a fixed-focus lens and a two-speed shutter – 1/40sec and 1/80 sec. You select the speeds with the weather symbols on the front of the camera. The aperture is set at f11 for the 43mm lens.

If you watched the fakmatic video you will hear that you have to take a photo, then expose another photo while covering the lens in that pattern. That way you avoid getting overlapped images.

I seem to say this all the time recently, but the weather here has been awful. I managed to use the film ready for home developing over a few days. It was hard to know when the film was finished as I could not hear any squeaking and there were no numbers to check. So once I thought I had taken enough shots I put the cartridge in a light tight bag and felt for the sprockets of the film. I could still feel them, that mean there was still film left. So I took a few more shots, then I repeated the process. The next time I could not feel the sprockets meaning the film was finished.

There were some overlaps, and the beginning of the film was fogged where I loaded it into the camera. One side of the film had the image over the sprockets, but I didn’t scan those to include them.

I kept the camera set to cloudy which meant an exposure of 1/40th at f11. Mostly the exposure is ok, I over developed the film as I though the conditions meant they might be underexposed.

The results look very soft in terms of focusing. They remind me of something from a pinhole camera. All in all I did not enjoy using the camera and I am not keen on the results. I doubt I will be using an instamatic again. Though I have to change my opinion of the fakmatic, that worked really well.