Lubitel 166b
Photography class was postponed this week so didn’t get into the darkroom, but did have a new camera to play with thanks to eBay.
I’d been wanting to have a shot at shooting some medium format film and this cheap and cheerful Lubitel 166b TLR looked like a good shout for someone like me (who has absolutely no clue what they are doing).
Lubitel literally means ‘Amateur’ and was designed as a cheap alternative to the 1938 German Voigtlander cameras. The operation is completely mechanical, you focus using the top down viewer and it has no built in light meter. Safe to say I wasn’t overly confident that I would end up with any images the first time I used it.
I loaded up some Kentmere 400 and took it out on my way to the cinema to snap away and see if the thing even worked.
Exposure wise, I attempted to adhere to the sunny 16 rule but really I was just randomly adjusting and hoping for the best. Whilst I had issues trying to work out how to focus, I actually really like that you look down to compose an image, as it made me feel slightly less conscious taking photos in public.
After the cinema I dropped the roll off at Gulabi (https://www.gulabi.co.uk/) to be developed and scanned.
I was impressed with the super quick turnaround as the download link arrived the next day.
From the contact sheet I could see I’d potentially advanced the film a few times without actually taking an image as I ended up with 9 out of 12 photos - I had a feeling I had done this as I was walking along Sauchiehall street, as it’s quite tricky to see the film advance number through the wee screen.
Images are more lomography than photography - but pleasantly surprised that the camera works and I had a lot of fun shooting with it.
I have a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5 120mm at the ready - think the next challenge will be taking the camera out for another spin and attempting to develop the 120mm film myself.
