Sometime ago I acquired an extremely vintage camera called a
Ruby, made in England sometime between 1925-1934. It is in fantastic shape, even in the original box. Since it is using a discontinued film format I had to use the only format that is commonly available today, medium format (120). This camera shoots an impressive 6x12 format. Wonderfully large negatives. Optically though not equally as impressive. My
Yashica-D is using the same film but in the square format 6x6 with a far superior optical lens.
My chum Colin, from our Photoclub, took the camera home and cleaned the optics of the Ruby since the lens was not really usable due to years of air and moisture, it was almost impossible to see-through it. He also rigged a spool to accept the smaller 120 film. Since it doesn't have the frame counter marking available, I loaded it and guessed the winding necessary to get it to the next frame without any overlapping. I fluked out with that as I got no overlapping at all.
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| Shutter speeds and Apertures. |
It has very limited shutter speed capabilities, 1/100th, 1/50th, 1/25th, 1/10th Second Also with Bulb and T which is a different type of bulb mode, somehow.. Since I only had a 400 ISO 120 in my fridge I had to wing it. (winging it refers to utilizing my educated guesswork for all my years with film). I think I shot it at about 100th sec and F8 or F11... seemed to be close. Films delightful exposure latitude makes winging it a little easier.
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| Ruby Roll Film Camera, Altrincham U.K. |
Just to show you all the more modern version of the main image I attempted, I used my super slow Sigma DP1s. The digital version of film!
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| Sigma DP1s |
Here is a visual side by side!
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| Ruby & Sigma |
The Viewfinder also is ridiculously hard to use also, more of a rough guide than anything and of course its reversed!
This next one is my favourite from this camera and not just my girls are in it but because it so perfectly dated, had they been in clothing more suited for the early 1900's then no-one would have know it wasn't shot 90 years ago!.
And then there is always the happy accidents and the others.
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| The "Ruby App" |
2 comments:
T is different. In T press the shutter button once and it opens the shutter and it should stay open till you press the shutter button again. In theory you can make the exposure as long as you want.
That's the same principle as B (Bulb). just don't know why one would want both.
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