Edixa 16-S

Edixa 16-S

Before Kodak introduced the 110 cartridge format in 1972, one of the great issues of subminiature film cameras was the proprietary cassette: with the popularity of subminiature cameras emerging in Japan in the 1950s, it seems every manufacturer made their own film cassettes which were all incompatible with other manufacturers' cameras. Evidently, Kodak were aware of the subminiature market, and after the success of the drop-in 126 cartridge, Kodak entered–or subsumed–that market with the consumer-friendly 110 cartridge; with Kodak's reach, the 110 format forced a standard and most other subminiature camera formats slowly disappeared. 

There were some examples of cross-manufacturer compatibility, but this generally happened through the copying of cameras, most notably, the initial Kiev Vega cameras which were copies of the initial model of the Minolta 16 camera, although the Kiev camera soon diverged as it evolved. One rare example of what must have been active co-operation, the Rada 16 cassette was adopted by three different German manufacturers. Although some information online doesn't always agree, it appears that the Goldammer Goldeck 16 camera was first, in 1959, followed by the first Edixa 16 in 1960 and finally the Rollei 16 in 1963. 

One reason for picking up an Edixa 16 camera is that I already had a number of cassettes thanks to sourcing them for my Rollei 16. There was also the sense of still looking for the 'perfect' subminiature camera that would take 16mm film (if such a thing could be found). The Rollei 16 has some limitations, such as its automatic exposure, but the biggest restriction of the camera is its use of perforated film. This means that cut-down film cannot be used in the camera, and one is restricted to whatever emulsions are available in 16mm–restricted further to single-perforated unless one wants to have the perforations appear along one edge of the image. The Rollei 16 is also quite large for a subminiature camera; the image below comapares the Edixa 16-S to the Rollei 16.

Edixa 16-S (front) and Rollei 16 (viewfinder extended for use)

There are a number of different Edixa 16 models, as well as Franka and Alka-branded versions; I found an Edixa 16-S at a relatively low price online and it was one of the cameras I bought on something of a whim during the second year of the pandemic as a distraction, and one without much research, although the sources seem a little thin on detail. Comparisons to the Rollei 16 here feel apt–the cameras have a similar feel in some respects, not just from the use of the same cassette; with the optional lightmeter that attaches to the side of the camera, the Edixa 16 and Rollei 16 look more alike (my camera came without the meter). I had thought that Heinz Waaske might have been involved in both designs, as Waaske famously worked for Rollei on the Rollei 35, but he only joined Rollei two years after the Rollei 16 was introduced (Waaske also proposed a compact 35mm camera to Wirgin, no doubt thanks in part to his work on the Edixa 16; Wirgin passed on the concept, which Waaske then took to Rollei, who produced around 2 million Rollei 35 cameras).

Without the lightmeter, the Edixa 16 is just over 8cm wide, by 4cm deep and about 3cm high with the various buttons, dials and levers protruding from the top and botton. The Edixa 16-S appears to be the low-end of the range of Edixa 16 cameras, with some of the functionality of the other models absent. There is also an Edixa 16 S, a different model from the similarly named 16-S described here (the S on that camera is engraved below the name - S - like the other models, M, MB, U. The 16-S lacks the small wheel or lever located next to the exposure dial for use with flash. It has an unnamed 25mm f2.8 lens–most of the other models, although not all, have a circular lens surround which gives the name of the lens, supplied by Schneider-Kreuznach, Rodenstock or Schacht. According to Submin.com, the Edixa 16-S has a Rodenstock Trinar lens, although this is not marked.

Edixa 16-S top plate

On the top plate of the camera, almost in the centre, is the shutter release, threaded for a cable release. This is surrounded by a rotating collar which locks the release, marked by a red dot which turns from a 12 o'clock position (unlocked) to 2 o'clock (locked), matching two black dots on the inner ring. The focus dial is on the right of the camera's top plate and is marked in metres in black, and feet in red. The lens focuses from infinity down to 0.4 metres. This dial, and the exposure dial, has a small indent with a black dot to indicate the selected setting.

On the left is the exposure dial. On the Edixa 16-S, shutter speed and aperture are a coupled EV (exposure vaue) system with black numbers ranging 8-15; outside this, the apertures above are marked in red. This is not the first camera I've had with an EV system, but on the Edix 16-S there is no means to override the coupling. The exposure dial also lacks shutter speed information (the Edixa 16 M and MB do have markings for shutter speeds) but the coupling is simple: from EV 10-15, the shutter is set to 1/150th: this encompasses the whole range of apertures. EV 9 is 1/60th at f2.8, and EV 8 1/30th at f2.8. The dial on the 16-S does rotate to a position below EV; on other cameras, this is where there is a B setting, but on the 16-S this doesn't function as an unmarked B and is presumably the same setting as EV 8.

The exposure dial also has a ring to set ISO. Without the dedicated lightmeter that attaches to the Edixa, this ring simply functions as a reminder. Using my Edixa 16-S, I mostly relied on the 'sunny 16' rule, although the EV numbers work well with contemporary light meters that have LV/EV numbers that one can use without thinking about the precise aperture/shutter speed combinations. There is–to me at least–a faint echo of the top plate of the Edixa 16 cameras in Heinz Waaske's design of the front face of the the Rollei 35.

Edixa 16-S bottom plate

The underside of the camera is where both film advance lever and rewind crank are located, as well as the frame counter, which resets to 'A' when opened. This is marked with even numbers and intermediate dots up to 24 (film will keep advancing after the 24th frame, unlike the Rollei 16). Very mush like a 35mm camera, to rewind the film, there is a rewind button to depress, and the rewind crank flips up; the advance and rewind are very much like a 35mm camera of the time.

The viewfinder is of the bright albada type, with parallax marks for close subjects. The viewfinder is  not quite as good as that on the Rollei 16 but close–it is one of clearest subminiature viewfinders I've experienced (it's also worth mentioning that it's larger and clearer than a number of my 35mm and medium format viewfinders); the viewfinder does take up nearly one-third of the length of the camera body. On the end of the body by the viewfinder there's a large screw and two round hole to which the meter attache; on the other end is threaded socket which functions for a tripod or hand strap.

Edixa 16-S showing rear latch

On the back of the camera it a round wheel that turns to unlock the camera back, with a small Z and A to indicate the direction to turn it from locked and unlocked. The bottom plate removes entirely for loading, with a section of the back that includes the film's pressure plate. With the advance and rewind levers on the bottom plate, these all have linkages through to the film cassette and the take up spool. 

Edixa 16-S opened for loading

A unique aspect to the Edixa 16 camera is the take-up spool, which is removable: to load the camera, the take-up spool is taken out. It has a spring clip under which the end of a fresh roll of film is secured, and then both are dropped into the camera, both with different dimensions, which means that they can't be inserted the wrong way around. If the take-up spool is missing, the camera is unusable as there's no way for the film to be wound on. The take-up spool has two small holes in the top through which two tabs on a spindle in the body connects this to the advance lever. Closing the camera body after loading, if the two parts of the camera don't fit closely, it can be that attention needs to be given to the positions of the tabs and the corresponding advance crank on the camera bottom to match these up properly (as well as the small slot in the release catch needing to be lined up correctly).

Edixa 16 advance or take-up spool

The first roll of film that I put through the Edixa 16-S was a cut-down section of Ilford HP5 Plus, an offcut from making up 127 format rolls. I did use the sunny 16 rule when exposing this film. With the shutter speed at most exposure settings being 1/150th, it wasn't necessarily easy to make exposure calculations in my head as I shot, and I think the results rely on the fact that HP5 Plus has enough latitude to excuse a lack of precision in exposure.

Edixa 16-S with Ilford HP5 Plus

The results were promising: the unnamed lens performs well on the subminiature level, and the shot I was most pleased about was the image above, shot in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, not the easiest lighting conditions to contend with when exposing. The images from the camera in this post are scanned from the negatives; printing in the darkroom from the negatives would no doubt give better results. I also shot some Kodak Imagelink film, an unperforated document film. I rated this film at either 20 or 25 ISO: the film is very tight in grain but has narrow latitude.

Edixa 16-S with Kodak Imagelink

With bright sunlight and deep shadows, the Imagelink film does not have the latitude to record information in both highlights and shadow areas, and so is better suited to overcast days when taking photographs outside. It is also particular in development, bearing in mind that using the film for pictorial purposes is not its intended use (I used a semi-stand development in Kodak HC-110 at dilution G, 1+119 from concentrate at 18 minutes at 20ºC, with agitation every 5 minutes).

There were two issues that emerged with my Edixa 16-S. I began to have overlapping frames on my negatives; I may have caused this by breaking the small pin which registers the film counter. I did this when trying to load the camera without a cassette inside a black bag–this was as I didn't have a cassette loaded, and I thought I could get a longer length of 16mm inside the camera without a cassette, but then caught the pin and bent it. When trying to bend this back into place it broke.

Edixa 16-S counter pin

This proved impossible to fix: I taped the two pieces together and fixed it back into the camera, but its spring was gone, which meant that the frame counter now keeps slipping back to the start position. The overlapping negative frames might be related to this.

Edixa 16-S with Kentmere Pan 400

I did find a workaround for this: when advancing the film, I found I was able to watch the rewind crank turn–like a manual 35mm camera–and if it didn't appear to be turning, or turning enough, I would take a blank frame and advance it again. It is one additional concern when using the camera.

Other than these issues, the Edixa 16-S is one of the better subminiature cameras I've used, partly due to its small size and how it feels in the hand–or handled in a coat pocket like a netsuke. Having used it for a few rolls, any of the more fully-featured Edixa 16 cameras would be preferable of course–the Edixa 16 M or MB models being the top of the range, and, using the dedicated lightmeter, although this makes the camera bigger, it would make exposure easier, although I'm used to using manual cameras with or without metering, so this isn't necessarily a great consideration when shooting. I hadn't used any conventional low ISO films with the camera, which might provide images with finer grain but better latitude than the Kodak Imagelink, something else to try, and would also show off the quality of the lens–which printing from the negatives in the darkroom would ultimately demonstrate.

Edixa 16-S with Ilford HP5 Plus

Edixa 16-S with Ilford HP5 Plus

Edixa 16-S with Kodak Imagelink

Edixa 16-S with Kodak Imagelink

 

Sources/further reading:
Edixa 16 cameras on Camera-Wiki.org
Heinz Waaske on Camera-Wiki.org 
Edixa 16 cameras on Submin.com

'Shadows and Projections'

In April I am showing a range of recent work in a one-person exhibition in Glasgow, ‘Shadows and Projections’. As well as photographs, this will also include paintings and drawings. The exhibition opens on 3rd April at The Art Space in Cass Art, 63-67 Queen Street G1 3EN and runs to the 18th April.

Fifteen Years On

 At previous points in the life of this blog coiniciding with the anniversary of its first post, I've used the occasion to take stock of the landscape of film based photography. The last such post, Ten Years On was more a reflection on trying to use the camera from that very first post–the Olympus Pen EE3–through the first year of hte pandemic only for it to develop a fault and the quality of the resulting photographs suffereing as a result. I haven't posted very much in recent years, partly to circumstances in life, wokring on the PhD which I finished in 2024, and for work and financial reasons simply taking fewer photographs than I had done habitually in the first ten years of this blog. Interesting things had been happening in film photography during the last five years, Harman producing a colour film, the expansion of Kentmere films into 120 format with a new speed point in the 200 ISO film; Orwo also brought out a colour film and a new 100 ISO black and white emulsion; Foma produced an ortho film in 35mm and 16mm, and black and white negative ciné films to augment their long-established R100 film; Ferrania also produced an ortho film (colour film of all types continued to get more expensive, of course). I haven't had the opportunity to actively explore these new films, whihc previously would have been ideal subjects for this blog–they still are, but without the novelty of trying them out when new, as I had done with a few films in the past. These often provided the most popular of the posts on this blog. On that, I thought it mght be worth sharing some statistics for this blog over its lifetime. The screenshot below shows the ten most visited posts over the fifteen years.

Of the film posts, Rollei RPX 25 and Foma Retropan 320 Soft were truly new when I wrote about them; Rollei RPX 400 (with its 100-speed version) was also relatively new and becoming more available in the UK. Fomapan 400 by contrast had been around for many years, and I'd used it in medium format a lot more than 35mm before I wrote the post; Ilford Pan 100 was not generally available in the UK, and I was told that it was being discontinued in favour of Kentmere Pan 100, similarly to the Ilford Pan 400/Kentmere Pan 400 (I suspected the addition of 'Pan' into the Kentmere name also seemed to be a deliberate decision to position these films as replacements). It's also instructive to see the camera posts which are the most popular: the post on the Canon AV-1 is in itself not very detailed about using the camera, but this does seem to have been useful for quite a number of visitors, and, I surmise, the fix for the camera being jammed that I walk through would seem to be a common problem (the procedure I used for the fix was based on one for the AE-1, similar, but different enough that it was worth properly documenting). The subminiature Rollei 16 camera does not seem to have much specific information about its use online, which probably accounts for the place of that in the list–the presence of the MPP is no doubt similar. For this small corner of the internet, and for what I have tried to do with this blog, is to give a full account of the cameras I have written about in use–as well as researching, I generally like to devote some time with any camera to get to know it before I write; the posts about different films are largely the same. At the time I began this blog, although I had always used film, I had returned to developing again after a few years of not doing so, and began to take this seriously as a process: as much as anything, this blog was a place to record whatever I was discovering for myself, and useful as a reference: and, if I was doing so, it seemed worthwhile to share my research and discoveries.
 

127 Day January 2026

Ikonta 520/18 with Kentmere Pan 400

For a many years on this blog, I've followed the 127 Days faithfully, until January 2024, which was the last time I observed one of these calendrical oddities. There are a number of reasons as to why I'd not taken photos on any of the three 127 Days since then, with perhaps a little regret, which applies in general to the Photo-Analogue blog itself. I resolved to shoot at least one roll on Janauary 27th this year, two weeks ago today. This turned out to be a working day, and in addition heavily overcast: I had anticipated needing a fast film for the day, and cut-down a couple of rolls of Kentmere Pan 400 to cover the possibility of less-than-ideal lighting conditions. I also chose the Baby Ikonta camera, with a full range of shutter speeds and a relatively fast lens in comparison to some of my other 127 cameras, more limited in that respect. With the cloud cover at the time of day I left the house in the morning, it wasn't fully light; at the other end of the working day it was after dark. The lens and shutter were sufficient to accommodate the former conditions; for the latter, on my way home, I found a few places to prop the camera and use the shutter's T setting for a few long exposures to use the roll of film. In between, I managed a handful of frames around the working day; if nothing else, it served as a reminder of the appeal of using the Baby Ikonta.

FAST

A12, Leytonstone, January 16th 2024

Two years ago I made a series of posts about my photographs of the M11 Link Road, posting on the dates on which I had taken the original pictures in 1993 and 1994, thirty years on, but with comparison photographs I had taken of the same locations twenty years later, already ten years old. I took new photographs then as well, but, apart from a set of pictures taken in August, I didn't post those at the time. I recently came across the scans of some of the negatives from 2024, mislaid through switching desktop computers. I had taken colour photographs in January 1994 (and in 2014; the post 'SQUIBB' compares these), so did the same in January 2024; the 16th of the month, the date I had taken the original pictures, was a Monday, a working day in 2024, which meant a detour to take the photographs before going to work, and, being January, the first photographs were taken just before sunrise. I got the handful of photographs I had wanted; the day before, I'd also taken a set as security, of the same locations as well as some in Wanstead which felt like too far in the wrong direction to shoot before work.

The image at the top of this post looks across the A12 (known as the M11 Link Road during its construction) towards the remaining sections of Dyers Hall Road, replicating one of the shots from 1994; in 2024, I also waited for a train to cross the railway bridge (the rebuilding of which–the green section–had been one of the first visible signs of the coming of the road), something I'd photographed in black and white a couple of weeks earlier in 1994 (the colour photograph from 1994 is first below).

 

The most striking images from January 1994 were those taken on Claremont Road; Claremont Road was almost entirely swallowed up by the new road, and now exists as a very short dead-end stub. A few new houses have been squeezed into the space between the houses and gardens on Grove Green Road and the A12 itself, with its characteristic yellow and red brick wall. In the previous post, I had reckoned that my position in the picture of the new houses would overlap with that of the partially demolished house from 1994 at the top of that post; see the pairing below. I think the short driveway in the middle of the picture from 2024 should roughly match up with the two doorways to the left of the photograph from 1994. 

 

What I didn't notice in 2014, when I took the photographs after a twenty year gap, is that there was a small section of the original houses on Claremont Road still surviving, like a remnant of Roman Wall sandwiched between contemporary buildings such as one might find in the City of London; I photographed this on the Sunday; the shot below (with detail) is taken to the left of that immediately above.

The rest of the photgraphs from Claremont Road are impossible to replicate: this would require levitating above the A12 (in August 2024, I used the strategy of taking some photographs across the A12 from the cemetary on the far side with a long lens, something that I didn't consider in January). The other photographs were from Colville Road, which lost all its houses on its eastern side, and a few facing these at the northern end, but was a little easier to replicate: after thirty years, the plane trees on the other side of the Central Line are still recognisable. My main difficulty in January 2024 was photographing into the rising sun above the wall of the A12 as below.

 

 

The other shot from Colville Road can be approximated; the 2014 photograph didn't take into account the fact that the road changes its angle at the northern end. Even taking this into consideration, the picture from 2024 should still be much closer to the contemporary wall (the graffiti on the gantry above the A12 gives this post its title).

 

The final two images from 1994 were taken from the footbridge over Eastern Avenue in Wanstead; as previously explained, I shot these in 2024 on the 15th rather than the 16th. The pairing of the first two shots below suggests that the footbridge was rebuilt slightly further down the slope over Eastern Avenue from that of 1994.

Unlike the photographs taken in 2014, I didn't attempt to use the same lens design for the photographs in 2024: these were all shot with the Canon A-1. I did use the same film, Kodak Gold 100 (however similar it may be the Kodak Gold 100 of thirty years ago); the positions for the photographs in 2024 was, in the main, closer to the original photographs taken in 2014, as much as can be achieved within the built environment as it currently exists between Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead. Although not replicating a photograph from 1994 (I regret not taking more photographs then), I took a photograph from the footbridge in Wanstead looking up the A12 to where it enters the George Green tunnel, site of some of the early and visible resistance to the road scheme–with the occupation of a 400-year old tree–as this was to go thanks to the use of cut and cover, a less expensive construction technique than tunneling itself.

 

Yashica 8T-2

Yashica 8T-2 double-8 camera

Following my experiences with the Bolex B-8VS, I wanted a compact 2x8mm camera to replace it, and for similar reasons–something small enough that could go in my camera bag alongside still film cameras. There are numerous all-mechanical and all-manual 8mm cameras from the same era as the Bolex which have a similar design; slightly earlier 8mm cameras were often less streamlined-looking, such as the Bell & Howell turret cameras, or simply bigger and more boxy, like the early Kodaks with their huge internal sprocket wheel; the design of the compact Bolex 8mm camera must have inspired the first generation of post-war 8mm cameras, as many compact double-turret cameras appeared looking rather similar around the same time.

One camera that came up in my research was the Yashica 8T-2; there were four different initial Yashica 8mm models before the Yashica T3. This features a three-lens turret and makes for a larger camera with a redesigned body. The features of the two-lens turret models are very similar to the Bolex in compact size, shape and layout. I may have been alerted to the Yashica 8T-2 by the video on the Film Photography Project's YouTube channel; similar to the Bolex B8VS, I bought the camer before a trip abroad, to Belgium this time. There are a few evolutionary differences from the earlier Yashica 8mm cameras: the original Yashica 8 from 1957 has a different shutter release and single frame setting (more like the contemporary Bolex) and a different door catch; there then was a single lens Yashica 8S from 1958, and the 8T and 8T-2 from the same year; Yashica triple-lens turret cameras began the following year. There seems to be little difference between the 8T and 8T-2: the cameras have simply "yashica-8" embossed on the door (from reading the Yashica TLR website, the distinction between the two is unclear: the impression I get is that the Yashica 8T was actually the same camera as the 8T-2 but offered with one lens only at the time of purchase).

The first Yashica 8mm model came with Zunow lenses; my camera arrived with a Yashinon f1.4 13mm lens, with the Yashinons featuring an almost identical desgin to the equivalent Zunow lenses from which they must have derived. For the pictures on this post I fitted a Cinetor one-and-a-half inch lens from a different camera, which incidentally has a stuck focus ring–when using the camera I used the 38mm Bolex Kern Paillard lens for a long lens option (which is quite compact compared to the Cinetor, nearly as short as the Yashinon 13mm lens). As the lens mounts on the turret are a standard D-mount, there are many interchangeable lenses that can be fitted to the camera. The Yashinon f1.4 13mm lens does not focus quite as close as the equivalent on the Bolex, but it does focus to 1 foot; focus is manual and not reflected in the viewfinder of course. The 13mm lens stops down to f22, useful for bright subjects when shooting faster contemporary emulsions.

One difference from the Bolex B8 is the mechanism for framing viewfinder to different focal lengths. On the Yashica there is a slider on the side with adjusts the viewfinder from 6.5mm, through 13mm and 25mm to 38mm lenses–unlike the Bolex, the wide angle lens doesn't require an adpator for the wide angle lens. It also has a set of markings with very small numerals inside at the bottom of the scale alongside the word "SCOPE". This was for a set of animorphic lenses, which, when combined with an animorphic adaptor on the viewfinder gave a widescreen projection–various widescreen aspect ratios becoming popular in the cinema, in part as a means to compete with the developing television market. The animorphic 'scope' lenses did require an adaptor which slipped over the front of viewfinder to mask it for the correct aspect ratio; these lenses appear to be very rare now. There was also an early zoom lens produced for the camera which had a mechnical arm which connected the lens barrel to the viewfinder slider, thus providing the correct angle of view when adjusting the focal length.

Loading the Yashica 8T-2 is a little simpler than the Bolex: the camera opens with a latch that lifts up and turns. Inside, the pressure plate does not have to be opened as a separate operation: it is sprung to open automatically when the camera itself is opened: an angled linear spring inside the door pushes the pressure plate into place when the camera is closed again. Unlike the Bolex, the lower spindle inside the camera does have the four teeth at its base to ensure that the 8mm spool is correctly oriented; the original Yashica spool which came with the camera is both numbered for sides 1 and 2 and has a different colour for each side too. The film path is marked with white lines with arrows for the correct threading and loop forming of the film. At the bottom right of the camera interior is a sprung pin which resets the footage counter when released: this is in a small round window on the back of the Yahsica 8T-2 in a very similar position to that of the Bolex B8. There is also a tripod socket on the base, offset presumably to balance the weight and motion of the srping motor; it also doubles as an attachment point for a hand strap, which my camera came with. Timed without film, at 16fps, the camera's motor runs for a full 30 seconds on one complete wind.

Without the Bolex's variable shutter, the controls on the side of the camera feel a little less cluttered. There is the shutter speed dial above the winding key, and the shutter release, changed from earlier iterations of the Yashica 8 appears very much like what one might see on a typical stills camera of the period. It has a recessed port for a cable release; on the front of the camera is a sliding switch with R for run and L for lock; while running, this switch can slide into the lock position to keep the camera running without the need for any pressure on the shutter release. There is also a second cable release port in a very similar position to that of the Bolex, with the same function: this provides the single frame setting for stop motion and animation purposes.

The shutter speed dial has seven marked positions for 8, 12, 16, 24, 36, 48, and 64fps, with 16 picked out in red for normal operation. There is however an eighth position between 12fps and 16fps. This has a definite click-stop on the dial as is common with all of the speed settings. Online, and on the Yashica TLR website–from which much of the historical information fof which this post is derived–there are models where this is marked TV: this appears to be a setting for filming from a television screen and evidently a shutter speed designed to be compatible with the scanning of the cathode ray television screen, a function useful decades before the home video recorder. As to why the marking was removed but setting kept on the Yashica 8T-2–or at least my model, as it appears that some 8T-2 cameras were produced with the setting marked–can only be speculated on.

After my experiences with the Bolex B-8VS–although the Yashica 8T-2 doesn't have a variable shutter which caused the problems with that camera–I did a test of a short length of very old Fortepan film in the camera before using it for anything important. The test looked fine; to date, I've only shot one full roll of Orwo UN54 with the Yashica 8T-2 around Belgium a couple of years ago. I had wanted to make something in Bruges in response to some ideas around the book Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach; Bruges la Morte, famously the first novel to be illustrated by photographs, inspired the crime fiction D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac on which Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was based. The unhealthy Symbolist atmosphere of Bruges in the novel was very difficult to square with the reality of Bruges thronged with tourists on a hot early summer's day. I shot some film of the canals mostly, thinking that it could be put together some how, but as a work, I still haven't resolved it; one short shot of swan down floating on black water gives some sense of what I wanted to achieve, although the resolution isn't quite up to it perhaps.

I subsequently discovered an issue with my camera which I hadn't anticipated: dutifully locking the shutter release when putting the camera away in my bag, I discovered on taking it out again that the motor had run down and it appeared–and was obvious when I got the film developed–that the motor had been running inside the bag. On examination, with the run switch in the lock position there is a bit of resistance when the shutter release is depressed, but if one pushes hard enough the shutter release depresses fully, but–as the switch is in the lock position–the motor then runs continuously. I reasoned that had I not locked the shutter, I may possibly have wasted less film with the release springing back instead of running until the motor stopped. I also botched flipping the film to shoot side 2, as I thought I was sufficiently confident to do this in a dark bag, with the intention of getting as much usable film as possible from not exposing the end of the film to light when turning it over. I didn't load it correctly however, and I thought I was shooting a lot of footage on the second side of the reel around Antwerp before I realised the film itself wasn't going through the gate and onto the take up reel; like the Bolex, the footage counter on the Yashica 8T-2 measures the turning of the take-up reel rather than the amount of film on it, as is the case with some cameras, so this counter can be going up even if the film itself is not actually moving through the camera. The short loop below represents almost everything I actually shot in Antwerp.

Overall, the Yashica 8T-2 gives the impression of a well-designed and constructed 8mm camera, comparable to the Bolex B8, but perhaps a little more elegant, a little more curved than the solid B8, with the Yashica's design details adding to its aesthertics, such as the vertical ribs on the sides of the body, the diagonal slash of the exposure table, and its muted metallic grey, offest by the dark grey accents around the viewfinder, motor wind and exposure table–this coming from a time when cameras all suddenly began to become grey as deviation from the standard black. It also belongs to the period in the 1950s before plastic started to be comonly used in camera construction and as such–issues with the lock lever on my camera notwithstanding (I have thought it should be possible to fashion a small guard or sleeve to fit around the shutter release when not in use instead of relying on the lock switch)–it gives a confidence in the hand, and in use, at nearly seventy years old the Yashica 8T-2 is one of the better compact, all-manual 8mm cameras around.

Sources/references
The Yashica 8 ciné cameras on Yashica TLR
Yashica 8T2 manual
Yashica 8T2 on Anna & Terry Vacani Binocular and Cine Collection
Yashica 8T2 Overview on Film Photography Project 

The Paillard-Bolex B-8VS

Bolex B-8VS

The Canon Cine-Zoom 512 which I wrote about a number of years ago has all the features that one might want in a 2x8mm film camera except compactness. Considering the desire for a compact 8mm camera for travelling, but one quite fully-featured, led me to consider the series of Bolex cameras which began with the Bolex L8 in the early 1940s, through various models and iterations for the next two decades. I wanted a 2x8mm camera, ideally with as many manual features as possible, in particular variable frame rates, and small enough to fit in a camera bag alongside a 35mm folding camera, a medium format folding camera, numerous rolls of film and accessories. The model that I bought to fulfil as many of these stipulations as possible was a Bolex B-8VS. I wanted it for a trip to the Netherlands made just before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic; I had the intention of making some work there on 8mm film and I wrote about this under 'Cameras Obscura' and 'A View of Delft'; I also used the Bolex for the first version of 'Workers Not Leaving The Factory'. I had intentions of writing a post about the camera itself around the time, in 2020, but for one main reason–which I will come back to–I didn't; looking through a number of draft posts, having neglected this blog recently, I thought it worth finishing my write up.

 

The Bolex L, B, C and D series cameras are all built around the same body casting and spring wound motor; the distinguishing feature of the B8 cameras, which followed the L8, was the presence of the dual lens turret. In the years before zoom lenses became common, beyond the more basic, lower-end cameras with fixed lenses, for the convenience of changing focal lengths without having to physically unscrew one lens and replace with another, turrets proliferated. Through the 1950s, dual turret cameras were superseded by triple-lens turrets (which would hold a wide, standard and long at once) until zoom lenses made these obsolete. However, both triple turrets and zoom lenses (which also necessitated reflex viewing) increased the bulk of cameras, which was why the B-8 series appealed; being familiar with fully manual still cameras also drove me to seek out manual ciné cameras. Without lenses the Bolex B body is 128mm high, 54mm wide and 88mm deep, compact but heavy. (The letter suffixes for Bolex cameras–after the single-lens L–run B: twin lens turret; C: single lens; D: triple lens; there was also the model P, still built around the same basic body but with a zoom lens; there was also the H8 camera, based around the 16mm Bolex, and as a result a much larger camera–for most of the information about dates and specifications, this post has relied heavily on the excellent Bolex Collector website).

 

 

The Bolex B-8 was introduced in 1953, and its various iterations were produced for the next decade; the B-8VS (variable shutter) model dates from 1957, with the serial number on mine dating it to the following year (serial numbers are engraved on the tripod mount on the bottom of the camera–on the B-8VS this sits a little proud meaning that the camera does not entirely sit happily on a flat surface); following the B-8VS there was a B-8L model with built-in light meter, a single speed B-8SL and the last model, the B-8LA, an improved B-8L. All feature the same rotating turret which allows for two standard D mount lenses; my camera came with a 13mm f1.9 Yvar lens, a 'standard' focal length for the 8mm format; I already had a 36mm f2.8 Yvar lens from another camera, a long lens to complement the standard. As the lenses are the common screw-in D-mount, it means that there are numerous interchangeable lenses available in a variety of focal lengths and apertures that can be used on the Bolex B-8. 

 

Bolex B-8VS with lower lens removed

The lens in the uppermost position on rotating turret is in taking position; the turret rotates clockwise, with a handy arrow to direct the user, with a sprung detent in the centre which clicks the lenses' positions satisfyingly in place. The lenses' screw thread is designed such that the focus and aperture settings are aligned with the indicating line on the lens body when looking down from the top of the camera (the built-in lightmeter on later models necessitated this positioning being changed so that the lens' settings on those cameras is seen from the side). The standard length Kern-Paillard lens which my camera came with is capable of focusing to 3/4 of a foot, or 23cm–a very close focus which of course produces parallax problems, but these are not insurmountable (the post 'Cameras Obscura' describes my attempts to film a close-up of a camera obscura screen roughly 8cm square). The Kern-Paillard lenses have a clever depth of field indicator built in, named by the manufacturers 'Visifocus': turning the aperture ring displays or hides a set of bright orange dots which can be read off against the distances on the lens. Focus and aperture settings are manual and the separate viewfinder is non-reflex.

Lens detail showing the Visifocus depth of field system

All B-8 cameras take 7.5m/25ft rolls of 2x8mm film, run twice through the camera to shoot each side of the film in succession, developed and spliced together for a 50ft length of film for projection. Loading the B-8 camera, although not as simple as inserting a Super-8 cartridge, is fairly straightforward. After opening the camera, turning the catch on the door from F to O, the film gate's pressure plate is released using a pivoting lever. The fresh roll of film is placed on the upper spindle in the film chamber, threaded through the gate while the pressure plate is open, and wound onto the take up spool on the lower spindle. The camera door cannot be closed and the catch turned to F while the pressure plate is disengaged. 

Bolex B-8VS opened for loading

One interesting feature to note is the fact that the two spindles inside the camera are undifferentiated in terms of which side of the spool they will accept: 2x8mm spools are designed with three tabs on one side and four on the other so as to make it impossible to insert them into a camera the wrong way around: some cameras have corresponding teeth at the bottom of each spindle, some only on the take up spindle; the Bolex B-8 has a sprung section on the take up spindle only which holds the take up spool by friction. The footage counter on the rear of the camera is reset on opening the camera; unlike some cameras which use a lever arm on the supply side spool to determine how much footage has been shot, the Bolex B-8's counter must simply be registering the rotations of the take up spool. The camera does require some winding of the motor to load; the winding key ratchets, meaning that the motor can be quickly wound by rocking the key backwards and forwards rather than making complete turns.

Bolex B-8VS with pressure plate opened for threading

Away from the lens, all the other user controls are on the right hand side of camera body. The shutter speed dial has seven speeds from 8 frames per second, through 12, 16 (picked out in red as the standard fps setting), 24, 32, 48, 64; the latter four generally used as slow-motion speeds, with 8 and 12fps intended more for use in low light with the availability of emulsions at the time rather than speeding up motion. The top dial is used to adjust the viewfinder's angle of view, with settings for 12,5mm, 25mm and 36m: for wide angle lenses there was an adapter which slipped over the front of the viewfinder. The shutter release is a lever that wraps around the corner of the body with a serrated grip; below this is a dial to lock the shutter, which will lock in both closed or open positions; above this is a cable release socket with a sliding cover: the first open position is for normal running of the shutter; the top position indicated by a second notch is for single-frame operation. The B-8VS also has a dial to set the variable shutter. This has three semi-circle icons at the front of the dial: one filled in silver, one half-filled, and one black, followed by an arrow and a letter S. On the other side of the dial, there are settings of 35 and 70 which align with the full silver dial and half-filled respectively: these refer to effective shutter speeds, the full open shutter (the silver semi-circle) giving an effective speed of 1/35th of a second, the half-filled circle a 70th. Possibly the 'S' stands for 'shut' with the shutter fully closed. 

User controls on the side of the Bolex B-8VS

When I bought the camera, the possibility of adjusting the shutter angle seemed to be a useful additional control, useful for creating in camera fades to black, or for using a wider aperture in brighter light for example, or a faster film in brighter conditions. However, I found the variable shutter dial on my camera very stiff to turn, and would not turn to the fully-open setting at all; turning it to the half open setting would somehow jam the shutter and the film would not run through the camera. As a result I shot the film with the dial half-way between this setting and the closed symbol, not really understanding at the time what these icons meant and what the numerals referred to. As a result, I found my films shot on the trip to the Netherlands around three stops underexposed; I developed one roll first to find it underexposed, then did numerous tests before getting an acceptable if high contrast image by greatly extending the development time on the second roll of Kodak Double-X that I had shot; with a roll of very old Orwo UP21 film from the early 1980s, I extended the development time, flashed the whole roll to pre-expose it in an attempt to raise shadow detail and then toned it with selenium toner as an exercise in intensifying the negative. This was only partially successful, as can be seen in the post 'A View of Delft' and in the short clip below. 

 

 

Once I had realised that this was a problem, I could adjust the camera when shooting to take into account the partially-closed shutter: the easiest way to do so would be open the aperture by three stops, or simply downrating the film when metering. This was the approach I made for 'Workers Not Leaving The Factory', although that had its own problems thanks to using unperforated film in the camera. I had previously used single-perforated 16mm Double-X film in the Bolex when testing exposure and development times: the Bolex B8 only engages the perforations on one side of the film, but having shot a short length of single perforation film, I thought I might as well try to flip the film and pass it through the camera a second time, and the pull-down claw obviously had enough friction to advance the film. The left hand side of the print below from the film shows fairly regularly spaced marks on the left, unperforated side of the film; the perforated side has the frames bunched up and overlapping.

 

Print from single-perforated 16mm Double-X film, shot with the Bolex B-8VS

I used the fact that I could put unperforated film through the camera when making 'Workers Not Leaving The Factory', using lengths of medium format Ilford FP4 Plus cut to 16mm wide in order to shoot the site of the Ilford factory in Ilford on Ilford film, which was partially successful. Shortly after shooting this film, the camera's spring-wound motor stopped working properly. Using it prior to this, when the motor was fully wound, part-way through its run, there would be an audible 'clunk' (which could also be felt); I suspect that there was a kink in the spring, possibly due to it being stored for years, maybe even decades, with the spring motor partially wound. It feels as though the spring no longer winds past this kink, with the result it only runs for eight or nine seconds–and the speed as it runs sounds irregular as well. Perhaps using unperforated film had some effect, although one feels that this shouldn't really affect the motor. As a result, the camera has stayed on a shelf (or indeed, inside a drawer) since. It may well be worth disassembling to investigate–for which I may have held off from writing this post that the time–but this hasn't been something I've been keen to do so far, having acquired other 8mm cameras since to take the place of the Bolex B-8VS.

Sources/References
Bolex B-8VS on Bolex Collector 
Bolex B-8VS in the Science Museum 
Bolex B-8 on Vintage Cameras (French) 
Bolex B-8VS with triple turret coversion on Deutsches Kamera Museum (German)