“The Big ‘un”

The Penrose Hunter camera is now in the studio with a helping hand from John and some of his students.

When I arrived at the sellers house yesterday and took a look at the camera in his garage I did have a little giggle to myself. Its much bigger than I expected. He had described it as “Large” but it was a good third bigger than I thought it would be. Its massive.

It doesnt look that big in the back of the van with wide angle….

The chap also makes guitars so its covered in saw dust and just needs a good clean and the focusing rods re-attaching. The cast iron work in the camera rear came out after undoing two large bolts.

The plate holder that was described as having a glass plate in it to hold paper/film negs turned out to be a huge contact printing frame by the same manufacturer. Apparently the camera had come from Southampton University…

So now I’m looking for an industrial wooden trolley or even an old scissor lift of some sort to put it on……Oh go on then heres one with me in it for a sense of scale….The other cameras in these pics are a whole plate on the Kodak Studio camera stand and Johns 12×15.