'Take Your Box Camera To Work Day'

Lumiere Scout Box Camera

For today's 'Take Your Box Camera To Work Day' (see previous post), I took my Lumière Scout Box to work. The Lumière Scout Box is quite compact for a box camera, smaller than the No.2 Brownie that I used to have. The camera has a single aperture, and the shutter has two settings, 'I' for 'Instant' and 'P' for 'Pneumatique' (or bulb). The lens is a meniscus type, a 'Lumiere Objectif Rapide'. The camera has a single viewfinder which, unusually, rotates through 90 degrees for landscape format shots. Inside the camera is a label instructing the use of 'Lumière 49' film, and the spool which came with the camera looks identical to a 620 spool, though fortunately the camera will also accept 120 spools without the modifications that 620 cameras often require.

I managed to shoot just one roll of film. As it wasn't a sunny day, and I thought I might be able to shoot inside, I wanted to use a 400 ISO film, but the only film I had in stock was Ilford Delta 400 (the roll I used had an expiry date of January 2009). I would have much preferred HP5, but I'd been given a few rolls of expired Delta 400 and wanted to use it up. The film was developed in Rodinal 1:25, 11 minutes 15 seconds at 18 degrees C. The results are perhaps rather unprepossessing, but I did get a shot of Ben Spiers, one of the other painting tutors at college.

Kennington Rooftops

Bin Yard

Painting Studio