The 80 year old wonder

For those of you who have seen my ‘Scanning the past’ blog you will know that I recently scanned a number of old slides for my mate Tony (Link here). Whilst initially looking at Tony’s Grandad’s slides, he also showed me some of the Cameras he was left and offered me the use of these cameras on loan so that I could take a couple of snaps with them.

Amongst the small collection was a mint Ricohflex TLR and a Kodak ‘Vigilant’ six 20, the later of which was my first choice to run a couple of films through.

The Vigilant is a medium format camera with an aspect ratio of 6x9, and is a pocket-able, folding camera using bellows to distance the lens from the film plane. Rather than using normal 120 film it uses Kodak’s own proprietary 620 medium format film. 620 film is exactly the same as 120 film, but Kodak used a slimmer, metal spool for this film making it impossible for normal 120 film (which at that time would have also been on metal spools) to fit in the camera.

Both the Vigilant and Ricohflex were in near mint condition as far as functionality was concerned (a few minor cosmetic scuffs here and there) and the lens’ on both seemed to be both scratch and fungus free.

I was very excited to use the Vigilant for a number of reasons, first of all was the shape of the negatives, up until now my limited experience with medium format has been in the 6x6 square using the Diana and Lubitel 2 (a blog and gallery to follow on that bad boy), so getting to use a camera with my preferred aspect ratio appealed. Another reason was that this camera was designed to produce quality photos, not the (to put it kindly) eccentric, artsy photos of the previously mentioned cameras. I also wanted to use a camera that was fully manual and had no luxuries such as light metering or auto-focus. I see using cameras that are literally the bare bones as a great aid in my development as a photographer, encouraging me to slow down and consider the process of taking a good picture.

So when 2 rolls of Ilford’s finest HP5+ dropped onto my doormat I was ready to shoot, or so I thought…

As mentioned above Kodak uses 620 medium format film and my realization that the spools would not fit into the camera only came when trying to load it, and then comparing the 120 spool to the take-up one in the camera. After consulting a couple of Youtube videos I set about trimming the (thankfully) plastic rims of the new film with nail scissors, and although this worked, it was not a great solution as the thickness of the roll of film itself made it a very tight fit and hard to advance the film on. This incompatibility also caused some damage to the film, with a tear occurring at the bottom of one the frames (the pic of the large white building in the gallery).

So what did I think about shooting this camera? It was fun, and it was nice to take pictures at a slower pace, rather than my usual run and gun style of shooting. However regardless of how careful I was with the zone focusing, aperture setting etc, the pics were a bit softer than expected. I also think this softness was a due a little bit to a slower shutter speed, as I couldn’t see any difference between 10th of second and 200th when looking through the lens wide open into a light.

There were also more and more black specs appearing as I carried on using the camera (black specs are particles captured on the negatives, unlike the white specs found on prints when dusty negs are scanned or enlarged). At first I thought this was due to my modification of the film spool (i.e. plastic particles), but I think the more likely cause was due to the 80 year canvas bellows starting to slightly deteriorate, as the specs on close inspection look quite fibrous. This would also make sense when you consider that the camera had probably not been opened for several decades, with the canvas coating drying and becoming more brittle in that time, and then shedding particles when being used quite intensively.

Another consideration was that I was using 400 ISO film, when a number of Youtubers stated I shouldn’t have used anything above 100. However I couldn’t really see what difference this would make on a fully manual camera, and the fact I was using a light meter and metered to box speed when shooting.

Please click the link below to have a look at some of the results. I have left these untouched for the most part after scanning, other than adjusting the brightness and throwing in a slight S curve.

I was hoping this camera would scratch my medium format, landscape orientation itch, but I’m affraid it hasn’t quite done that. I still long for one of the nineties built Fujifilm medium format cameras with all the trimmings, but unfortunately the pennies won’t allow that at the moment.

The Vigilant, however is a beautiful piece of equipment, showing real quality in the build and great craftsmanship. It was a real pleasure experiencing this camera and using it for the purpose it was designed for, after so many years laying dormant.

Click here to see the gallery

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