Empire Junior Model no. 981

The Empire Junior model no. 981 is a mystique! I saw her (although it is more a he…) so I saw him in a second hand shop in Utrecht in the original box including the nice instructions what you should do or better not do. I hesitated a bit as I really have enough cameras!

Two shots of the camera and its beautiful box

One day later I bought her, put in a Lomography X-Pro Slide 200 and started shooting. Without knowing anything as you cannot get infos about that camera only that is was produced in Hong Kong during the 1960’s! It was a rainy day, so it was even harder to use the camera. I am satisfied, though… Here are the results from my first roll:

You have a medium format camera that shoots 12 frames in app. 6×6. The camera has three different apertures of unknown size, but connected to three words: “bright – hazy – cloudy”. You can choose between I (what is about 1/60) or B for long time exposures and you can set the distance in feet with three suggestions: 5-8, 20-25 and INF

One day later I took him out during sunshine and used some Lomography Color Negative 100

One of the best and funniest things is this one page of the description that says:

HELPFUL HINTS FOR BETTER PICTURES

DO’S
- Clean lens before taking pictures
- Always have the sun behind you
- Hold camera steady against your face
- Press down shutter Release gently
- Use the view finder to its full limits… the camera actually sees more than you do
- Remember to turn on your film to the next number after you have snapped a picture

DONT’S
- Load or unload the film in a bright area
- Snap pictures in the shade or where the light is poor
- Take pictures closer than 5 feet
- Take pictures of fast moving objects
- Take pictures with the B stop unless your camera is firmly rested
- Use rough material to clean the lens

This makes me eager to try all the don’ts except the last one! :) wait for a blog entry :)))

2011-03-11 #gear #medium-format #120 #review #camera #square #hong-kong #light-leaks #lomography #60er #user-review #empire-junior-981 #1960th