Alan Lesheim Photographer | Local service

Alan Lesheim Photographer

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25.01.2022 I finally got around to tackling the two inoperative shutters for the Thornton Pickard cameras. Unable to source shutter blind material if the right thinness I opted to liberally spray black vinyl restorer paint onto material cut from an old black silk shirt, which worked perfectly. For the cocking string I had to remove one strand from four-ply cotton string, then soak that in shellac and finally run it through an acrylic varnish to get it thin, firm and lint-free enough to properly wind onto the take-up spool. A bit of fine tuning adjustment, polishing, making one brass bracket up, reassembly, and both are now working exactly as they should. Tools needed - a couple of flat-bladed screwdrivers, needle-nosed pliers, cutting knife, steel ruler, plus some patience. Try that with a modern digital camera!

13.01.2022 So the restrictions in Tasmania on travel beyond 30km from home have been lifted, and over the next few weeks I'll finally be able to get out with the old cameras again, with another Thornton Pickard and a couple of lenses added to the fold whilst scrolling through ebay during the lock-down. I did get out on the farm with the Thornton Pickard to pick up a few shots, finally settling on Ilford Multigrade IV Fibre Paper as being the best choice for negative material, offering t...he least surface variation of all that I've tried. The last photos are of the "new" Thornton Pickard camera (right) and the one I renovated last year pictured together, the new one being at the head of the queue to get its brasswork polished and a few pinholes in the bellows restored first, and after maybe exchanging a few bits between the two to get an overall better camera, will likely be the one that ends up as my camera of choice. Final pictures show the two being photographed by the old Scovill whole-plate I restored from scrap earlier, and the resulting photo demonstrating, perhaps, why I'm doggedly pursuing this method and the effect that the orthochromatic paper emulsion has on the tonal rendering of reds and yellows.

12.01.2022 The latest Thornton Pickard is now nearing full restoration; brass cleaned, polished and sealed, bellows made light-tight as all the corners in the front half had leaks as well as many in the rear half. The only remaining task is to repair the shutter, the original blind having rotted along with the cocking string. I'll probably have to import some shutter blind material and make the curtain up from scratch as apparently the exact thickness is important to proper operation. M...eanwhile I'll start taking photos with it as-is using the lens mount from my other Thornton-Pickard and a lens cap for the shutter. As I disassembled the camera it was apparent that it had hardly been used (the rear part of the bellows was firmly in its folded position and took a good amount of coaxing to unfold properly), and given some of the hardware that it was earlier in the model run than my other one, so probably closer to the 1910-ish mark. The wood and brass, whilst dirty and tarnished, were relatively un-marked other than a badly repaired crack in the bottom of the lens mount panel, which wasn't too difficult to rectify. I made a more substantial base-plate than my first effort on the other cameras, which, along with a 100mm long Arca mounting plate I bought on ebay attaches the camera very rigidly to my modern Gitzo carbon fibre tripod. I also made a new maker's label to fill the hole in the rear standard where the original had once been by copying the label on my other camera, which is cheating, I suppose, but it looks nicer now. So here's the camera, before (left) and after (right). :)

10.01.2022 Heavy fog yesterday stirred me out with the old whole-plate Scovill camera to reprise a couple of shots I had taken a while ago on a clear, sunny day (they're posted here with that story beneath this post) using a half-plate Thornton Pickard camera, and using the same 360mm f/9 lens on both cameras (although the final result was completely different, of course). I'm now contemplating laying my hands of a more usable folding whole-plate camera - the Scovill is little more than a crude box with a push-pull rear frame for focusing, and it is a most ungainly contraption to carry around as well.

04.01.2022 Just for the record, I'll post photos of my latest Covid-time project already posted on my personal page - I was given a c. 1907-1912 Pony Premo N0.7, 5" x 7" camera in woeful condition that had been rescued from the tip and was about to be sent back due to no-one wanting it. It had been painted long ago (maybe for Navy use?) with matt black paint all over the bellows and leather, and with battleship-grey paint almost everywhere else, the leather was torn and missing in man...y places and several parts were also missing; there was no lens or shutter present, and I could understand why it had been thrown away. Still, with time on my hands I thought I'd have a go at it, not to "restore" for collection value, but to turn into an operational camera again. First photo shows how it looked when I got it, second dis-assembled and partially stripped of finish, and the rest how it looks now, metal parts polished and wood finished with hand-rubbed shellac varnish. I also made an adapter so it can hold either one of my Thornton Pickard-Beck lenses attached to their TP shutters (which I restored to working condition recently), or any of my shutterless lenses for which I'd made an appropriate lens panel. When I draw breath enough to justify/afford a box of 5" x 7" film, and have found a double darkslide which fits the camera (which might be as soon as tomorrow if the one I look at then fits), I'll certainly have a crack at getting some images from it. :)