Friday Morning

  I took my Bentzin Primar plate camera to the Plaza Vieja to catch the old cars and a couple of the old car guys.

The roll of Fomapan 400 was processed in HC110b.  I was pleased with image quality from the low-cost Fomapan, but found I was really out of practice in using the plate camera.  Both the wire frame finder and the little reflex viewer provide a somewhat vague idea of where the camera is pointed, and achieving sharp focus by estimation is always tricky at less than the smallest apertures.  It took some careful cropping of the negatives to get some reasonable compositions.

Shooting the Patent Etui

I recently purchased a few rolls of 120-size Arista Edu Ultra 400 to shoot in my medium format cameras.  I decided to start off with one of my KW Patent Etui plate cameras with the f4.5/10.5cm Trioplan lens.  I shot the roll at 200 ASA with the intent of processing in PMK Pyro.  I did not find any guides to using that combination of film and developer, so I looked around at similar combinations for which there were reported results, and I decided to develop for twelve minutes at 24C.  I was happy enough with the outcome, but I could also see that my results were not optimal because of the length of time elapsed since I last used the camera.

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Cottonwoods

Downtown

Conservatory

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Plate cameras were very popular in the 1920s and '30s.  All the major manufacturers made them and all had essentially the same set of features, often using the same Compur shutters and Zeiss lenses.  The folding plate cameras were very compact compared to other popular styles available in those days and the KW Patent Etui (KAWEE) and the Bentzin Primar were notable for their extremely clever design which allowed them to be folded up and easily slipped into a pocket.  When folded, the Patent Etui occupied about the same space as a packet of three plate holders, or a filmpack adapter.

Accessory roll film holders were available for all the plate cameras; the two most common being the Rada and the Rollex.  Because of the thin slots on the back of the Patent Etui, only the Rollex will work with my 6.5x9  KW cameras.  While the roll film back did provide a relatively easy way to use commonly available roll film cartridges with the plate cameras, it did also negate the plate camera's compactness to a large degree.

It is possible even today to purchase glass plates for use with the plate film cameras, but the multi-sheet film packs have not been available for decades and cut film is hard to find in the 6.5x9 size.  I have so far only used my plate cameras with the roll film adapters.

All of the plate cameras come with three options for viewing the subject to be photographed.  The ground glass backs are essential when high precision is required for framing the subject as in close-up work.  The need to switch out the film back with the ground glass back makes for a rather awkward and time-consuming process and a sturdy, stable tripod is essential.  The little reflex finder and the wire frame finders make hand-held operation possible and are quicker to use, but still require some careful alignment to yield a good result.

I sometimes use the reflex finder and it works, but the image is pretty small and easily obscured if the head is not held precisely in the right position relative to the finder.  The bubble level next to the finder is helpful in keeping the image properly angled.

On the Patent Etui a little post is flipped up to use in conjunction with the swing-out wire frame finder.  With the round tip of the post properly centered, the wire frame will enclose the portion of the scene which will be recorded on the film.  It takes some practice to get good framing with such an arrangement.

So, while good results from any of the plate cameras do require some time and practice to achieve, their features can provide a great deal of versatility and deliver images of excellent quality.  Even with relatively simple 3-element uncoated lenses like the Trioplan the big 6.5x9 or 9x12 negatives will provide sharp pictures with a deep range of tonal values.  If you need further convincing of the picture-making capacities of the little plate cameras, just take a look at the work Brassai did with his.

Working on my plate camera skills

I have decided I need to spend more time with my plate cameras.  I have acquired five of the compact folders over the past several years.  All have good shutters and lenses, and bellows needing just minimal patching to be usable.  My first, the Kodak Recomar 18, was in great shape as it came to me from a fellow who was a very competent camera repairman.  The others had small issues that I was able to handle myself, and I was able to find two roll film adapters which made it practical to shoot all the cameras.

Yesterday, I loaded a roll of Fuji Acros in the Bentzin Primar and took it for a walk around Old Town.  As usual on a Friday morning, some of the local classic car enthusiasts had parked their treasures on the west end of the Plaza Vieja.  As much as I like the 100-speed Acros/Rodinal combination, it turns out to be something of a challenge to shoot in the plate cameras in anything less than full sun.  A shutter speed of 1/100 is about as low as I can go when hand-holding a 105mm lens, and opening the lens past f16 gives very shallow depth of field when distance has to be estimated.  I still have several rolls of Tri-X in the refrigerator, so I'll likely use that in my next round with the plate cameras.