Can you help me identify this equipment?

BetterSense · Mar 16, 2009

I recently got a bunch of miscellaneous darkroom equipment and I'm too green to even know what it is or what it is supposed to be used for.

First photo, is from left to right, some kind of handle...I don't know if this is for a camera or what. It seems very well-built though, so it must be old. In the middle is a Honeywell device with rotatable silver reflectors. It looks like it could be a flash for old flashbulbs, but the socket is very strange. I don't know what flashbulb fixtures look like. On the right is probably a flash too but the socket is different from the one in the center. Can one still buy flashbulbs anymore?

The next photo is of a glass negative carrier, but the packaging doesn't say what it is to. Any idea what enlarger this fits?

The last photo, and I have three of these, are hard rubber tanks. I've never processed sheet film so I'm trying to figure out how these were originally used. I think they must have been used to soup 4x5 sheets that were somehow dipped into them. They are made out of real hard rubber and not plastic.

MattKing · Mar 16, 2009

From top to bottom:

TOP:
1) on the left is a grip for a camera, with a cold-shoe on top for a flash. Most frequently used for a 35mm SLR;
2) in the middle, a folding reflector for flashbulbs - and yes you can still find flashbulbs, although I don't know if they are still being made;
3) at the right, ??? (no idea).

MIDDLE
1) That is a negative carrier for a "Kodak Precision Enlarger" (see the box ).

BOTTOM
1) the hard rubber tanks are used with film hangars. You insert the sheet film into the hangar, which hangs upright in the tank. You agitate by lifting the hangar, tilting the hangar, and then replacing the hangar, in a particular pattern (and in the dark, unless the film is orthochromatic). Others here have much more knowledge than I about these.

Matt

Ralph Javins · Mar 16, 2009

Good morning, Better Sense;

Matt King is right. The handle on the flash bracket swings out 90 degrees and the thumb screw holds it in place. You mount the camera onto the bracket with the 1/4-20 screw on the long flat part of the bracket.

The folding fan flash has a socket that accepted the normal single contact Bayonet base bulbs such as the Number 5 and 6 bulbs, and the miniature base bulbs in the M series. You opened up the fan reflector for those two bulb types. It is not clear from the photograph if it can also accept the groove base AG-1 type miniature bulbs. The AG-1 bulbs were used better in a small 2 inch diameter adapter with a Bayonet base that plugged into the flash gun socket, instead of opening up the fan reflector. I think that mine used the Burgess Y-15 22.5 VDC battery.

The rectangular device is not detailed enough in the photograph, but it might be a light meter that clipped onto the flash gun shoe mount on the top of the camera. Seeing the detail of the dial, and perhaps the front of the device, would help in identifying its function.

The negative carrier and mask looks like one for 16 mm or Minox negatives. Knowing the dimensions of the rectangular opening would identify that.

Nice deep tanks for developing 4 by 5 film.

BetterSense · Mar 16, 2009

Sorry, the bit on the right is flipped over in that photo. It seems like a flashbulb flash afterall.

Francis in VT · Mar 16, 2009

It is for AG-1 flash bulbs.
Yhe only place flashbulbs are being made is in Ireland, a company called

Meggaflash

Tel: +353 65 6822677
Fax: +353 65 6822688
Email: meggafla@iol.ie
URL: http://www.meggaflash.com

Francis in VT · Mar 16, 2009

Meggaflash does not make AG-1 flashes nut they can usually be found on ebay

BetterSense · Mar 16, 2009

I had a "lightbulb moment" after I unfolded the handle-thing. I understand it now; but I'm not sure what I would use such a thing for. It does balance a lot better than putting the flash on the top of the camera, I guess, and I can use it with cameras that have no hot shoe, like my medium-format camera.

removed-user-1 · Mar 16, 2009

BetterSense said:
I had a "lightbulb moment" after I unfolded the handle-thing. I understand it now; but I'm not sure what I would use such a thing for. It does balance a lot better than putting the flash on the top of the camera, I guess, and I can use it with cameras that have no hot shoe, like my medium-format camera.

It also serves to get the flash further from the lens (analog red eye reduction).

BetterSense · Apr 5, 2009

Ok, now how about these interesting things? They say "Cibachrome a" on them and look a lot like contact printers. It's a white base and two black tops that have numbered rows of windows in them. It really appears as if these are designed to make contact prints of 35mm color slides onto Cibachrome, but that sounds extraordinarily expensive and pointless, considering you can just look at the slide just as easily.

Anscojohn · Apr 5, 2009

Making Cibachrome proof sheets for filing?

mike c · Apr 5, 2009

veiwing filters for ciba prints,to correct color.

mike c · Apr 5, 2009

They may not be ,but when I first started using cibachrom we used sheets like that .they had individual little windows with colored filters to view the print and help you determine color correction. Did not have color analyzers for fhototogs back then.

BetterSense · Apr 5, 2009

Well they don't have any colored filters as they are now, but at least it helps me to rest my mind over their use. Thanks for the info.

Anscojohn · Apr 5, 2009

Sometimes I soup my roll film in those large tanks. I "string" the reels on homemade brass rods, with a T at the bottom. It means sitting and whistling in the dark (actually listening to Mozart) until the film is in the fix tank, but that is a small price to pay for the convenience. Some folks say that gives more even development than inverted SS tanks, but I have never been able to tell the difference.
PS: Although I really love the music of J.S. Bach, I like the sound of Mozart in the dark. Go figure.

mike c · Apr 5, 2009

Well do you think am any closer than John in my answer.

Pompiere · Apr 7, 2009

The Honeywell Tilt-A-Mite flash will accept either the smaller M5 bulbs or the larger Press 25 bulbs. The socket self-adjusts to either size. You just press the bulb in and pull it out. The Press 25 bulbs will light up a large room, with a guide number in the hundreds. I have one that works, although I have never used it for a photo.

Can you help me identify this equipment?

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