Hunter Gilbert

Here is our Hunter Gilbert, a 120 camera that takes 8 6×9 negatives on a roll of film. It is an amazing piece of early 1950s British engineering, but it is not complicated to use, as it has only two apertures and two shutter speeds – although I couldn’t say what the true measurements are as they are labelled Sunny, Dull, Slow and Fast.

I put some Ilford HP5 through this a few weeks ago and have just now developed the negs (we are re-using yesterday’s Ilfotec LC29) and apart from a fairly splendid light leak (which I think is because of the film counter window not closing fully) the negatives look good. I am actually just glad that this camera took any picture at all, of course I won’t be able to see what sort of pictures it takes until I can scan them in later. Alice processed a roll of film from an Ensign Ranger folding camera too, amazing.

I’m aiming to cross-process a roll of c41 in the LC29 chemicals later, which may or may not work. I bought an Olympus SP35 a while back, but the rangefinder was way off so I had only got through the first ten shots or so of that film. I am not going to bother with the hassle of processing that film properly, so I will take a chance with the chemicals we have and see if there is a shot worth salvaging. It’s a real shame to me because I have wanted a decent SP35 for quite some time and I had to send this one back, they have such a great Zuiko lens.