Those who know me well will already have heard my tales of woe re having boxes of Polaroid 5x4 sheet film and no camera to feed them into. Well, all that has come to an end. I finally found a Graflex RB on evilBay for £40 (I think I posted photos of it here already) and I bought it. It arrived in the post last week and the good news is that it works (sort of). It looks sh*tty, needed a good clean, is creaky in places and smelt SERIOUSLY musty, but the shutter works and the mirror thingy does the job if you talk to her nicely enough. The only serious annoyance was that the back of the camera isn't compatible with my Polaroid 545 back. Aaargh! What is it with me and Graflex camera backs? This is the 3rd one I've bought (all of them different models) and only one has had the back that I've expected it to.
Anyway, I had to modify it slightly with the help of my father-in-law, Jim, and we eventually got it working (OK, who am I kidding, it was his idea and he did all the work himself too...but I supported ably and made the tea
). As a tribute to the architect of the sucessfully executed camera mod; here's the second picture I shot with it. The first was a touching still life of an iron and a juicer on an ironing board. To some it might be a test shot, but to me it's art
Anyway, once we had confirmation that the thing was working I got Jim to sit in front of the beast herself and pose for portrait #1. The film was Polaroid 57 (the really fast one), the expsoure was something like 1/160th (but I have no idea what it was really because I'm sure the calibration on the Graflex is
way out), the tripod was an idustrial roll of paper and the lighting was completely haphazard. I think it came out pretty good despite all of that.
Once I have more of a handle on things (i.e. in 3 years) I'll risk some of the 55 film in the hope of coming up with some nice negs. Will post progress here so you can live it with me....I know, I'm such a giving person
[attachment deleted by admin]
