Double Test

Double Test, originally uploaded by panodanno.

I picked up a new 47-year-old camera from Easy-bay this past week. It's a Yashica Minister D. It has a meter, but this is one Yashica that works fine w/o that. It's all mechanical.

This is my second Minister D. The first one was in a bit better condition than this one. But I'm hoping this one will clean up... and that the light meter will work (unlike my first one). I wanted to check for light leaks before fixing the rest. Looks okay there, so some cleaning and battery testing comes next.

So, the first test was to see if the camera was light tight... The second test was to develop the c-41 film using caffenol. Caffenol C-L to be exact. This was my first attempt at using caffenol, and since I have a freezer full of c41 film, I swung for the fences and started with that.

I mixed up the brew, sloshed it around for 45 seconds or so on the film, then took off for a run in the rain. 70 minutes later (workout complete) I dumped out the brew, stopped, fixed, washed, dried.

The negatives are a bit dense, so some bleach is on the horizon, but I'm happy w/ the first try.

Oh yeah, it rained cats and dogs today. This pic was the best I could do until late this afternoon. I didn't want the new-old camera to melt in the rain! :)