I have now developed and scanned the first photos from my 1930s Zeiss Ikon Maximar camera. The film I used was some expired Ilford sheet film I bought on e-bay.
First problem was that the film was smaller than the size of the plate holders. Ok, so I thought I would slide it under the little spring flaps on the plate holders, and this would hold it firm and flat. This worked OK and I got the film loaded in my changing bag.
The camera proved to be very fiddly to operate and impossible to focus in daylight. I had to use my dressing gown over my head to keep the light out so I could focus it on the ground glass screen. I also forgot to check which way around one of the film sheets was and got it back to front.
To process the film sheets I used the 'taco' technique in a Paterson type tank, using hair tie elastic bands I bought in Boots. This did not work well and the sheets came out of the bands in the tank during development and stuck to each other. The end result is this:
The only way I could scan it was by sticking the sheets to my scanner 120 film mask so this is only a small portion of the image. The image is covered in small black spots which may have come off the hair bands and also quite badly scratched, this may have been me handling the film or the film may be scratched anyway. The film is over exposed, so the shutter may be slow, but it is pretty sharp for a 80 year old lens.
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