Sanderson Regular circa 1904

Now this camera was a real treat to discover.  I remember my dad using this one a lot.  Mum had placed it in the care of my sister for safe keeping many years ago when she went off on an extended holiday and never remembered to ask for it back.  I had always assumed, like the other camera, that this had been sold after my father's death with his business.  So when my sister came with an old leather box a couple of days ago I was so pleased to discover what was inside.

The camera is a Sanderson Regular Hand & Filed camera built around 1904 so it would have been old when my dad had it.  It took either glass plate film or hand cut film measuring 5 x 4 inches.  Sadly I only have one of the negatives that was taken on this camera although my mother believes she had some of the glass plates stored away somewhere.  With such large negatives the camera was capable of recording vast amounts of detail which is why my father used to use it despite it's age.

One Interesting feature it has is it's ability to tilt shift the lens.  Although my knowledge of this kind of camera is very sketchy I believe this would have been used when taking wide angle shot to counteract the distortion.  For instance, when taking wide angle shots of buildings the walls tend to lean out or lean in depending on what angle you hold the camera at.  Tilting the lens helps to correct for that. Today, a tilt/shift lens will set you back hundreds of pounds for a SLR camera but here it was incorporated into the design.

This particular camera has had a few modification made to it.  I'm not sure the lens is original as they were often swapped and normally they had a brass view finder mounted on the base board but on this camera that has been removed and a glass view finder has been placed on the outside of the case as seen in the top image.

Still, the camera appears in remarkable good condition and, if I could get film for it, I'm sure it would still take brilliant images.

I'm glad to have had the opportunity to photograph it.  It will now be returned to my mother's care or, placed on loan to a museum.

Plaubel Makina

If you read my profile you will know I am following in my father's footsteps as regards to taking up photography.  He, however, was a commercial and industrial photographer whereas I specialise in pet portraiture.  Still, same principals apply.
My mother was recently clearing out her loft that had not been touched in decades.  She came across one of my fathers old cameras which she gave to me.  So I thought I would share it with you.
This camera is a Plaubel Makina IIIr. It dates back to the early 1950's. Dad would have probably bought it second hand. It is fitted with a 100mm f4.2 lens. I don't know if he had other lenses for it but he probably did.
It was designed to take individual negatives that were inserted into plates that fitted on the back. However, you could get an attachment to take roll film. The image below shows two rolliback for roll film and 4 film plates for individual negatives.

To focus the camera when it was on a tripod you fitted a piece of ground glass with a sun shade around it. You can just see the sun shade sticking out the back of the camera on these shots. The image would appear upside down on the ground glass plate. Once the image was composed and focused you removed the ground glass plate and replaced it with either the single negative plate holder or the rolliback containing the film. You could then expose it using the shutter release as normal. Not exactly something you could use for sports action.
If you wanted to use it hand held, instead of using the ground glass plate you could look through the pop up view finder  or use the range finder(the two rectangular ports on the top next to the view finder).
Really makes me appreciate my digital SLR.

Wednesday 23rd June
I've been encourage to take the plunge and run some film through this camera so I have ordered a couple of rolls of black & white 120 film.  It remains to be seen how competently I can use this camera so the results will be very interesting.