Improving triggering the shutter on Box Cameras?

[SomewhereLost]

Just picked up an Ansco Cadet B2. Despite the shutter being broken where it won't snap back, I still think it's usable. However, the slow shutter (somewhere between 1/30th-1/60th depending on which resource I check), combined with my shutter having issues, makes me think getting a good shot even on a tripod might be extra difficult. Does anyone have a way to improve triggering the shutter for box cameras for smoother operation and less shake? Like maybe using a rubber band to pull down the shutter or something?

My shutter failing in case anyone wanted to see it.

 

[shutterfinger]

The front with the lens and shutter should separate from the main body. Please provide a picture of the side of the camera.

 

[SomewhereLost]

The front with the lens and shutter should separate from the main body. Please provide a picture of the side of the camera.

Video of the shutter inside

 

[gone]

1/60 would be a fast box camera shutter, they're usually running 1/30 in real time, at the most. There's not much to these, maybe you could get to the shutter and figure out a way to shim the spring, stretch it, something. I'd just set the camera on something to get a shot, but hey, blurry artistic photos are what box cameras are all about.

 

[shutterfinger]

Kodak box cameras of this type shutter speed is 1/45.
Have you put a very small drop of light machine oil on the pivots?
The short spring on the operating lever/shutter blind appears weak.
Remove the springs then heat treat them according to the last steps in this spring making guide http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/springs/springs.html
It will increase the springs tension about 25% to 30%.

 

[Dwight Anderson]

I have this same model. First thing to check is that the shutter lever is not binding in the slot in the side of the camera. These can get bent and bind up the lever. Then try moving the shutter lever without triggering the rotating disc. It should move back and forth under the pressure of both springs quite easily. If not, it may need a drop of sewing machine oil on the pivot, but these are designed to run dry. The shutter speed itself doesn't look much different than mine, I usually figure on 1/25th or 1/30th on the simplest box cameras like this.

The technique for a solid shutter release is to hold it with fingers of both hands underneath and thumbs facing forward on the sides. Then a steady squeeze of the thumb. Oh, and a beer belly makes a nice prop.

 

[SomewhereLost]

Thanks for all the help guys. One thing I thought about after opening up the camera. I saw someone cover the end areas of the slot that goes across the lens. They said this would increase shutter speed. Is that true?

 

[Donald Qualls]

Shortening the length of the actual shutter opening will indeed make the effective shutter speed faster. Half the length would change 1/45 to 1/90, near enough.

One must remember that these cameras were designed when most drug store processing (literally, in the back room of the local pharmacy, at least in much of America, into the 1960s) returned contact prints -- meaning that a given level of motion blur on the negative was less noticeable than it would have been with, say, a 127 4x4 or later 126 28x28 mm frame printed large enough to view in hand. Beyond that, I've had many box camera negatives that were plenty sharp to enlarge 2x or even 3x -- a ratio that, from 35 mm or 126 would still produce a print barely big enough to bother, but from a 2x3 inch negative makes the very comfortable 4x6 or slightly too large for albums 6x9 inch prints.

All that to say, embrace the motion blur. You're shooting in depth of field anyway (correct focus for most of these is 12 feet, hyperfocal from 6 feet to infinity at the usual f/13 to f/18 aperture); once again, calculated for contact prints at 2x3 final size.

 

[Dwight Anderson]

The Cadet B2 I have had film in it, I actually got some good results developing the Verichrome Pan iso 125 that was in it. Based on a double exposure that had some cars in it, it was from the late 1950's. You can find some examples in this thread:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/help-me-develop-this-old-verichrome.189755/#post-2516129

I have a posted a roll shot with a Sears Tower box camera on my blog, it's also made by Ansco. I shot Ilford PanF iso 50. I would probably shoot Ilford HP4 next time to give a little more flexibilty with shadows. If you're going to increase the shutter speed, you'd have to shoot something faster than that.

https://www.cameravignette.com/post/grandma-s-tower-34-box-camera-by-sears

 

[SomewhereLost]

Shortening the length of the actual shutter opening will indeed make the effective shutter speed faster. Half the length would change 1/45 to 1/90, near enough.

One must remember that these cameras were designed when most drug store processing (literally, in the back room of the local pharmacy, at least in much of America, into the 1960s) returned contact prints -- meaning that a given level of motion blur on the negative was less noticeable than it would have been with, say, a 127 4x4 or later 126 28x28 mm frame printed large enough to view in hand. Beyond that, I've had many box camera negatives that were plenty sharp to enlarge 2x or even 3x -- a ratio that, from 35 mm or 126 would still produce a print barely big enough to bother, but from a 2x3 inch negative makes the very comfortable 4x6 or slightly too large for albums 6x9 inch prints.

All that to say, embrace the motion blur. You're shooting in depth of field anyway (correct focus for most of these is 12 feet, hyperfocal from 6 feet to infinity at the usual f/13 to f/18 aperture); once again, calculated for contact prints at 2x3 final size.

Just the man I was gonna message about this when my post count hit 20. Lol. I knew none of this. Thank you. A couple of questions though, you say shutter is 1/45th, and f13 to f18 for aperture. I How confident are you about those numbers, because I keep seeing 1/30-1/60 with everyone taking a different stance, and across the board, I've seen this camera stated as f11. I've never really done prints even for digital photos, so is it normal to get the 6x9 negatives printed out at 2x3? I hit up a local Walgreens and tried to ask some questions about printing this stuff, but the guy behind the counter was just as clueless about this stuff as I currently am.

 

[SomewhereLost]

The Cadet B2 I have had film in it, I actually got some good results developing the Verichrome Pan iso 125 that was in it. Based on a double exposure that had some cars in it, it was from the late 1950's. You can find some examples in this thread:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/help-me-develop-this-old-verichrome.189755/#post-2516129

I have a posted a roll shot with a Sears Tower box camera on my blog, it's also made by Ansco. I shot Ilford PanF iso 50. I would probably shoot Ilford HP4 next time to give a little more flexibilty with shadows. If you're going to increase the shutter speed, you'd have to shoot something faster than that.

https://www.cameravignette.com/post/grandma-s-tower-34-box-camera-by-sears

View attachment 299437 View attachment 299438

This is going to be a very dumb question....it's safe to use color films with these box cameras right? I keep seeing black and white photos and I don't know if that's because of technical limitations or artistic choice from modern photographers using this camera.

I was looking to test it out with a roll of Kodak Professional Ektar Color Negative Film ISO 100. I wasn't able to come across a color iso 50 film, but would a 10year expired roll of Kodak Professional Ektar Color Negative Film ISO 100 do the job? I know this is seemingly a debatable issue, but it was the solution I had concluded.

 

[BrianShaw]

This is going to be a very dumb question....it's safe to use color films with these box cameras right? I keep seeing black and white photos and I don't know if that's because of technical limitations or artistic choice from modern photographers using this camera.

I was looking to test it out with a roll of Kodak Professional Ektar Color Negative Film ISO 100. I wasn't able to come across a color iso 50 film, but would a 10year expired roll of Kodak Professional Ektar Color Negative Film ISO 100 do the job? I know this is seemingly a debatable issue, but it was the solution I had concluded.

Not a dumb question at all. Give it a try, especially when you have the shutter running reliably. Many years ago I shot color film using an older camera and was very pleasantly surprised at the results.

 

[Dwight Anderson]

When you're learning, there are no dumb questions. You can use color film the same as black and white. Personally I'm developing B+W at home to save on costs. I would think the 10 year old Ektar would work well, I've heard a rule of thumb that you open up a stop for every decade on expired film.

If you view your shutter video on youtube, you can advance one frame at a time by pausing and using the period and comma keys. The second time you open the shutter, you can see the aperture open with the slot just starting, and the next frame the slot is just past. So about 1/30th.

You can measure approximate focal length from the back of the lens to the film plane, and divide that number by the diameter of the aperture to get an approximate F stop

 

[Donald Qualls]

A couple of questions though, you say shutter is 1/45th, and f13 to f18 for aperture. I How confident are you about those numbers, because I keep seeing 1/30-1/60 with everyone taking a different stance, and across the board, I've seen this camera stated as f11. I've never really done prints even for digital photos, so is it normal to get the 6x9 negatives printed out at 2x3? I hit up a local Walgreens and tried to ask some questions about printing this stuff, but the guy behind the counter was just as clueless about this stuff as I currently am.

Each individual shutter will have its own speed; I just picked those as reasonably possible examples. If you have a reasonably modern smart phone, you can take a slo-mo video of the shutter motion and count the frames that show the shutter open to get a better figure (70 frames per second, which my Pixel will do in slo-mo, makes each frame about 14 milliseconds, but different model phones will have different frame rates available). Typical speeds for a rotary shutter (the kind found in most box cameras) will run from 1/25 to 1/200 (got one that fast in my FPP Debonair), and apertures range from an optimistic f/11 to f/18 or so (those that have two aperture choices will generally have one stop difference). With the lens behind the shutter, you can pretty readily measure the actual aperture, measure the focal length, and calculate the f ratio.

If you don't want to do all that measuring and calculating, it's generally safe to load ISO 100 film for bright conditions, and ISO 400 for dull (cloudy) conditions. Even ISO 400 won't do indoors without flash in a box camera, though, unless you use long exposure.

These cameras were generally built for what was then ASA 50-64 (after the ASA jump of 1960, they'd be modern ISO 100-125), so f/11 at 1/50 is the standard "Sunny f/11" exposure (because most people think "Hazy" is actually "Sunny"), but f/13 or f/16 at 1/40 or 1/25 wasn't uncommon.

And yes, my experience is even the simplest will do fine with color, as long as the print size is kept small. Enlarge too much, you'll see color fringes (especially near the corners) due to chromatic aberration, but at 2x3 print size or corresponding size on a screen, they aren't very noticeable.

And now here are some reasons not to take you film to WalMart: you'll never see your negatives (or your 620 spool, if that's what you camera uses) again, they may not accept 120/620 at all anyway, and if they do, their lab may do a poor job dealing with the potentially uneven frame spacing that can come with red window framing. Not to mention their scans suck...

 

[shutterfinger]

https://www.dwaynesphoto.com/site/services
10 year old color film may have a color shift to cyan or blue depending on how it has been stored. Shoot it anyway as you can color correct in post processing.

 

[SomewhereLost]

When you're learning, there are no dumb questions. You can use color film the same as black and white. Personally I'm developing B+W at home to save on costs. I would think the 10 year old Ektar would work well, I've heard a rule of thumb that you open up a stop for every decade on expired film.

If you view your shutter video on youtube, you can advance one frame at a time by pausing and using the period and comma keys. The second time you open the shutter, you can see the aperture open with the slot just starting, and the next frame the slot is just past. So about 1/30th.

You can measure approximate focal length from the back of the lens to the film plane, and divide that number by the diameter of the aperture to get an approximate F stop

My biggest concern was that color film didn't exist when this was manufactured and I was unsure if it would be safe to use it for some technical reasons.

So for anyone who can help, I read out to a guy who had fixed his B2 and I noted something. In the enclosed pic, he has that little metal thingie (spring?) near his shutter and I do not. Does someone have a name for what that is or where I might find one?

 

[Dwight Anderson]

The picture of the other camera shows differences in the shutter plate as well. Without knowing the exact model, I would say it may not work like yours. Ansco made these over many years in both Ansco and Agfa names. They often had other features such as different apertures, time exposure, and portrait lenses.

I would concentrate on why the shutter lever is binding. You can carefully unhook the spring between the shutter lever and the rotating plate. The shutter lever should then move easily back up by spring pressure.

If you can't get it to move correctly, the rotating plate is still working and it will take pictures, you just have to move the lever up after every shot

 

[shutterfinger]

My biggest concern was that color film didn't exist when this was manufactured and I was unsure if it would be safe to use it for some technical reasons.

Kodachrome, the first color film, was introduced in 1936.

There were/are changes made in a production run for a particular model also.

 

[SomewhereLost]

The picture of the other camera shows differences in the shutter plate as well. Without knowing the exact model, I would say it may not work like yours. Ansco made these over many years in both Ansco and Agfa names. They often had other features such as different apertures, time exposure, and portrait lenses.

I would concentrate on why the shutter lever is binding. You can carefully unhook the spring between the shutter lever and the rotating plate. The shutter lever should then move easily back up by spring pressure.

If you can't get it to move correctly, the rotating plate is still working and it will take pictures, you just have to move the lever up after every shot

Upon closer inspection, you are correct. He's got the Agfa version and I have the Ansco version. All these versions have not helped me figure this out. I'm still not 100% certain the way it is functioning isn't correct for this version. I've seen a few videos that suggest it doesn't spring back, and others that do. Sigh.

 

[SomewhereLost]

Kodachrome, the first color film, was introduced in 1936.

I didn't know. Thank you for educating me. Would I be correct in assuming a price difference between color and B/W film is a contributing factor to why there seem to be more black and white photos from before the 60s? Or would there be some other larger factors at play, like accessibility to buy and develop color film being harder to come by?

 

[Dwight Anderson]

Have you checked that the lever is moving freely in the slot? If it isn't, you can hold the lever down and bend the tab to straighten it out. If it is not rubbing on the side of the slot, the next point to look at is the pivot. It is possible it was riveted on too tight. Nothing you can do about that, except try a drop of oil. It is possible the spring has lost its tension but not likely unless someone else has messed with it.

These cameras were very inexpensive when new, and sometimes came with flaws from the factory. Some of the most mint cameras I have had non functional shutters.

 

[MattKing]

I didn't know. Thank you for educating me. Would I be correct in assuming a price difference between color and B/W film is a contributing factor to why there seem to be more black and white photos from before the 60s? Or would there be some other larger factors at play, like accessibility to buy and develop color film being harder to come by?

When colour print film was introduced, there were no colour commercial developing labs (yet) and still lots of labs set up for black and white.
It took a while for that to reverse itself.
While there have been times, over the years, when lots of people and commercial users developed their own film, there has always been considerable more film developed by commercial labs.
When colour print films were introduced, the film manufacturers wanted to make sure (mostly) that customers with existing cameras would be able to use them. At the time, an investment in a camera was taken quite seriously, and cameras were expected to last!
Kodachrome, of course, was a colour transparency film that was also used for movies.

 

[Helge]

Just picked up an Ansco Cadet B2. Despite the shutter being broken where it won't snap back, I still think it's usable. However, the slow shutter (somewhere between 1/30th-1/60th depending on which resource I check), combined with my shutter having issues, makes me think getting a good shot even on a tripod might be extra difficult. Does anyone have a way to improve triggering the shutter for box cameras for smoother operation and less shake? Like maybe using a rubber band to pull down the shutter or something?

My shutter failing in case anyone wanted to see it.

Well, the Agfa Syncro Box has a cable release socket (and sync for bulb flash).

It’s not really worth fixing a box camera, unless for the challenge and satisfaction in itself.
There is so many out there.
Your best bet is probably to find a B2 in terrible condition, but with intact spring.
Or just any other 120 box.

To me a box camera is exactly about the dogma of the one lens element, one speed, hyper focal and then see how much you can do with that.

“Improved” boxes are on a vector away from that clear binary “ideal”.
The Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor is an example of that.

The box is far more exciting and real than the manufactured and commoditized “authenticity” of the Holga.
The box is not some random type of camera that was used to exploit a naive hungry market in the waning years of concrete communist China, turned to a whimsical, kooky joke for hipsters in the 90s.
These are real cameras, that real families used for sometimes decades.

 

[shutterfinger]

The color print films prior to the 60's were known for low contrast and pastel color. Portraits were called Peaches and Cream as you could see the jaw, eyes, nose, and some of the cheek bone curves but not much more.
EDIT:
The photo you posted in post 3 with levels adjusted to show the lever in its slot more clearly.
the lever appears good.
Looking at it isn't going to fix it. Take a pair of needle nose pliers and compress the right leg of the lever spring until it is disengaged from the shutter lever then lift it up over the lever seat and slide it out of the shutter slot.
post a picture of the spring.
Operate the lever, it should move easily and smoothly.
TriFlow https://www.amazon.com/Tri-Flow-Squ...id=1646099188&sprefix=triflow,aps,193&sr=8-19 is an excellent oil to use in cameras and is available at bike shops and hardware stores. Apply a drop on each pivot point and operate the shutter several times. Let it sit for a few hours then wipe off any oil that seeps out from the pivots if you used too big of a drop.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Worth noting that there were some box camera shutters that fired on both down stroke and up stroke. If yours does that, it's fine, just remember not to both push down and lift or you'll make a double exposure.