Time Capsule

Antique Ingraham "Magic 7" Clock, photographed with a yard-sale Kodak Recomar 6.5x9-cm camera, Fuji Velvia 50 in Rada 120 adapter. © Jim Hughes, 2010

By Jim Hughes

This past winter, having finally settled into our new home, a 1920 Arts and Crafts bungalow, I became obsessed with finding an appropriately mature clock. It had to be wind-up, of course, and melodious chimes were a prerequisite. We needed something antique but gracefully simple, large enough to be seen from a distance but small enough to fit the space I envisioned for it atop one of the many mission-style bookshelves I had erected to hold our newly moved collection of books. There is no room in this small house for towering Grandfathers!

After considerable searching, I found what I was looking for in a sprawling barn of an antiques mall a couple towns away from ours. The clock, hiding in a dark corner, was a traditional mantel model. It was named the "Magic 7" on the still intact instruction label glued inside the hinged rear panel. Made by E. Ingraham of Bristol, Connecticut, the clock had evidently survived nearly a century of loyal family timekeeping until it was picked up at an estate sale and made available for sale, and rebirth.

I was told the clock was in working condition, but when I got it home and wound it up with a misfitting key, it tick-tocked for a few seconds at most and promptly stopped dead. After much fiddling with the intricate maze of brass gears and wheels, conveniently accessible though the back panel, I got it running again—but only temporarily. I tried again and again. Each time it would run a bit longer, but ultimately go silent. Finally, well into the night, I fashioned a long, tapered stick, found my wife’s sewing machine oil, and, by alternately dipping and dabbing a tiny bit at a time, proceeded to carefully lubricate every bearing point I could reach. Then, using constant pressure from a finger, I forced the most recalcitrant (and slowest moving) gear forward. My finger went numb eventually, but the improvised encouragement, to my surprise, had the desired result.

This time around, to paraphrase John Cameron Swayze, the old clock, having taken its licking, just kept on ticking as its miniature pendulum finally began to swing rhythmically and relentlessly. It was music to my ears. All that was left for me was to visit a local old-clock repairer a friend recommended and rummage through his winding-key drawer to find a match—one that included the required second tiny socket for making fast-slow adjustments. That trial and error process took another month, but the old Ingraham now keeps perfect time—almost as good as any modern quartz movement—as long as I remember to wind it every seventh day (I know, the clock’s face says "eight day," but there seems to be no manufacturer’s 800 number that I can call for an explanation).

What does this Luddite’s clock have to do with photography, you may well ask? Think about it. Aside from a certain aesthetic appeal, its design is such that, with no clock-repair experience whatsoever (aside from having dismantled my grandfather’s pocket watch when I was seven, after which it ran at triple speed!), I was able to get the Ingraham running properly using my own two hands and a little logical ingenuity. In other words, this clock, being analog and mechanical, was designed and manufactured in a completely transparent manner.

There was a time when I intuitively understood the way cars worked, as well, and would not hesitate to undertake most engine repairs myself. I remember tuning the twin carburetors on a 1956 Mercedes 190 SL by putting an inverted funnel to my ear and listening to the sounds their various needles and orifices made. Try that with today’s electronic computerized beasts. I couldn’t afford the tools required, let alone the schooling needed to use them.

The Day It Rained Bubbles in Maine, photographed with a Fuji GS 645 on Fuji Velvia 50. © Jim Hughes, 2009

I'm afraid I feel the same way about cameras. The more mechanical, from my perspective, the better. I don't want to think about Modes and Histograms (although I do understand the latter's value, just as I do regularly apply Curves when I scan my transparencies and print Dye-Subs via Photoshop), and I certainly don’t want a bunch of tiny buttons and wheels, not to mention menus and submenus, getting between me and a picture when I'm shooting. Call me old-fashioned.

A few months before purchasing the clock, I happened upon a small cardboard box full of photo stuff at a yard sale. Even folded closed, I recognized the camera: a 6.5x9-cm Kodak Recomar 18, the smaller brother of the 9x12-cm Recomar 33 that had been my first serious camera back when I was 12 or so and the local camera-store proprietor in Connecticut convinced me "the lens alone is worth the price." For $25, the camera’s fixed 135mm ƒ/4.5 Kodak Anastigmat—in truth, I learned much later, a rebranded Schneider optic—was indeed worth that, and considerably more.

Recomars weren’t really your typical Kodaks. They were precision instruments made at the Dr. Nagel-Werk in Stuttgart, Germany, the same factory that designed and produced the superb Retina line (one of which, the IIa, I still regularly use). Recomars were made from 1932 to 1940, and the original list price in this country for the Model 18, with its sharp if uncoated 105mm ƒ/4.5 lens, was $40.

Back in 1949, I used film packs with my "new" Model 33. Pull a paper tab, "advance" the film. I scale focused or squinted at the groundglass back, which provided a dim and grainy upside down image, of course. Not only was using the camera real work, but I couldn't afford the luxury of bracketing single sheets of film. So I quickly learned how to properly expose and compose with some sort of precision. In fact, I used that camera through high school, even taking our Yearbook "candids" with it. Just imagine running up and down the sidelines at football games with your bellows camera on a tripod! Talk about visualization.

Amber Alert: My Twin Is Missing, photographed with a Fuji GS 645 on Fuji Velvia 50. © Jim Hughes, 2009

These days, little computers buried inside plastic cameras do much of the grunt work, focus included, but I find myself unwilling to relinquish any sort of control over my pictures. It was with the Recomar, after all, that I learned how to see photographically. I still have that camera, but I now shoot mostly color, and 9x12 color is not a specialty film even Freestyle carries.

But back to the yard sale. In that box was not only a pristine "baby" Recomar, looking for all the world like a miniaturized view camera, but a batch of accessories: a six-inch cable release apparently sold with the camera originally, a groundglass back with a nice folding leather hood, a film-pack adapter loaded with still unexposed film, two unopened boxes of Kodak Super-XX (expiration date, October 1943) pack film, and six single-sheet plate holders bearing handwritten tape labels such as "Panatomic-X, Loaded 2/24/41" and "Super Ortho Press 100, Loaded 2/24/41." On one of the latter labels the word "Posed" was overwritten.

Unfortunately, all of the holders were now empty. I would have loved to have seen pictures, but none were included in the box, which apparently came from a house on the Maine coast, perhaps a fishing village, that had recently been emptied out in an estate sale. The photographer whose equipment this was evidently had been at the very least a serious hobbyist. He or she took meticulous care of everything, which was in perfect working order. Even the Compur shutter, which sounded pretty accurate to my ear. Mint, as they say. And all for $8 (I checked Ebay and found a Model 18, sans holders, for $328). At least in my instance, the gear found a good home.

One day, I will see what I can do with the unexposed pack film. In the meantime, I went on Ebay to see if I could find a roll film adapter. For $40 (not quite the bargain that the camera "kit" was!), I was able to buy a Rada 120, also, it turned out, in near-perfect condition. I loaded it with Fuji Velvia 50, then waited for an opportunity to use the set up. Time passed. Finally, the day came when the Ingraham "Magic 7" clock was up and running.

So what could be more appropriate, I thought, than one antique (me) photographing a second antique (the Ingraham) using a third antique (the Recomar)? So that’s what I did. The result appears at the top of this post.

But wait, there’s more in this particular time capsule. Last September, a photographer friend here in Maine, knowing my preference for rangefinders (my primary shooters since 1968 have been a pair of Canon 7s), asked if I’d be interested in one of her old cameras. She had transitioned completely to digital, and this medium format RF camera had been just sitting in a drawer for several years. Last she remembered, it had had a film transport problem, which was why she stopped using it in the first place. That, and the fact that in her recent work, she was more interested in macro and longer lens work, and this camera, a 6x4.5, had a fixed "normal" length lens.

Of course, I said yes. So one day she and her husband met my wife and I for breakfast, and she handed me the camera: a Fuji GS 645, a model introduced in 1983 (I remember that Bob Schwalberg had raved about it in the penultimate issue of the original Camera Arts). Over the next few years, it was supplanted by newer versions, but this one, a true clamshell folder with a bright-frame, parallax-corrected viewfinder, had always been the most compact. And its 75mm ƒ/3.4 Fujinon lens had been widely praised.

A quick inspection showed that the years, and the owner, had been kind to this camera. But when I ran a dummy roll of film through it, I realized that there was indeed a serious disconnect between the very smooth and convenient (for a street shooter) thumb advance, and the frame-counting and shutter-cocking mechanism. The counter needed five or more frames for the shutter to begin firing. Unacceptable, obviously. So I opened the back, turned on a desk lamp, and stared. Eventually, I saw what might be causing the problem. The narrow band of foam in the body’s light-trap channel had begun to disintegrate, turning into a gooey mess. It had fouled a little spring-loaded lever that protrudes from a small opening in the channel and in essence tells the camera when the back is closed.

With needles, dental picks (I use them for woodworking!) and some rubber-cement thinner, I managed to remove all the foam, including a few gobs that had worked their way into the camera’s innards.

When I reloaded the dummy roll, everything worked perfectly. So in went a fresh roll of Velvia 50, which took me a couple weeks to shoot. I just carried the camera slung under a shoulder, as I would one of my 35mm rangefinders, popping it open and lifting it to my eye when a picture seemed to appear in front of me. I have included three photographs from that first roll. Think of them as finger exercises (a good way for any photographer to stay in shape, by the way).

Across the Street from Rite Aid's Window, photographed with a Fuji GS 645 on Fuji Velvia 50. © Jim Hughes, 2009

Unfortunately, it is the only roll I’ve been able to expose with the camera so far, because on one of the frames I noticed what appeared to be a ghost. Not being a believer is astral spirits, I again opened the back. This time, I put my eye right into the film plane and aimed the extended bellows, not the lens, directly at the brightest light in the house. And there was the culprit: not one, but two fairly obvious light leaks.

I Googled internet groups and discovered that the bellows was this camera's weak point. Unlike the rest of the camera, it was cheaply made (actually felt like coated cardboard) and not designed to withstand the twisting motion required each time it was opened and closed. Replacing a bellows in a small camera is not my idea of fun, so back to the internet. Everyone who'd encountered the problem mentioned one repair facility, Camera Wiz in Harrisonburg, Virginia, whose highly regarded proprietor, Frank Marshman, told me over the phone that he had one reliable supplier of quality leather bellows, in London. He had a few other Fujis awaiting repair, and he was about to place an order. He said he’d call and tell me when to send the camera.

That was a few months ago. In the meantime, it seems, the supplier went out of business. But, Frank informed me, two of the craftsmen, the ones who actually did the fabrication, had decided to go into business for themselves. So I waited some more. This week Frank said to send the camera since the bellows was enroute.

I like this camera so much that I have been happy to wait. In the interim, my other, much older bellows cameras, the 75-year old Recomar and the nearly 60-year old Retina IIa and Super Ikonta B (not to mention my bellowsless 42-year old Canons with vintage screw-mount lenses), are holding up just fine, thank you very much. I should fare so well. Even just ten years from now, I doubt if you'd be able to show me a digital camera from today that hasn't made it to the scrapheap.

Okay, so maybe it is time for me to get with the program and go digital. But the only camera I’d consider is the Leica M9, I’d have to relearn a bunch of stuff, and I doubt my pictures would be any better, or even different. Besides, I like holding my slide sheets up to the light. I can see the images directly and immediately, and study my selects in great detail on my lightbox with a loupe. I certainly can’t do that with a CD or DVD (and I know my film will still be readable when said digital files have long since faded into oblivion). Besides, I have the sinking feeling that my digital files will always be obscured by increasing layers of technology.

Of course, I could save a lot of money by not having to purchase film and pay for processing—but at my conservative shooting rate, I’d have to live another 58 years to be paid back the $7,000 I’d be spending for the Leica! That would make me the world's only 131-year old photographer....

Jim

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Arne Croell: "The defunct bellows bellows company in England you mention was Camera Bellows, and the active successor is Custom Bellows, if somebody needs bellows for a similar project. I had a new bellows for my Linhof Technikardan made by them and their quality is first rate (I am not affiliated other than being a customer)."

Featured Comment by Paris: "There are lots of reasons to give up photography, but if the last box of film expired in October of 1943, there's a better than even chance that the original owner was called away to someplace like Kwajelein, or Anzio. I've bought these estate-sale boxes, too, and I always wonder a little about the history."

Featured Comment by Dave Jenkins: "Jim, I guess I'm somewhat of an oddball magazine collector, but I still have all the issues of Camera 35 from the late '60s. I'm too lazy to get up and go look, but I seem to remember an article or two about your acquisition of the Canon 7s. I also have a magazine from that period (maybe U.S. Camera—like I said, I'm too lazy to get up and go look) where you shot a photo feature on the doors of Charleston, S.C. with your Canon rangefinders. For the record, and apropos of nothing in particular, I still have all the issues of the original Camera Arts magazine which you edited."

Jim replies: You have a good memory. I photographed Charleston when I was editor of Travel & Camera, 1969-70 (can't be more specific; misplaced that issue long ago). Travel & Camera replaced U.S. Camera when American Express bought the company from Tom Maloney. Soon after, T&C turned into Travel & Leisure, and I resumed editing Camera 35. I did use the same Canon 7s that I use now, and a lot of the pictures were made with the 19mm Canon because of that city's very tight quarters. Still a great lens, although I rarely need its unique properties. My primary wide angle is the 35, and my "telephoto" is the 50. Call it the RF shooter's mentality. Therein may lie another story....

Comments

[Christer Almqvist]

Simply wonderful stories, thank you for sharing.

[John F. Opie]

Oy vey...

One of the things I do is moderate a vintage and pocket watch forum at WatchUSeek (I'm JohnF there...), and you've done something with the clock that will guarantee that you will have serious, serious problems down the road.

First of all, the housing of the clock is not hermetically sealed in any way, meaning that all that nice oil you smeared everywhere will act as a dust magnet and will turn the oil into an abrasive, rather than a lubricant (oil + dust = abrasive). It won't die today, it won't die tomorrow, but it will die. The oil that is lubricating the movement now will slowly pick up dust and the dust will be ground into the brass gears, pitting them and destroying the movement.

Please, please get that lovely clock to a professional watchmaker and have it properly worked on! Once the movement is damaged, you might as well just say "screw it" and put in a cheap quartz and just pretend.

Jeez. This is like dunking the balky winding mechanism of a beautiful vintage M3 in WD40 and calling it fixed instead of disassembling it properly, finding the problem, and fixing it before reassembly and proper lubrication so that the winding mechanism works right for the next 30 years...

Sorry to be so harsh, but mistreating vintage mechanisms...that's harsh.

[Paul]

It´s been a bad, very bad day. I´ve just broken this afternoon the clutch on my 80mm Carl Zeiss Lens for my Hassy! I adore that camera. Too make matters worse I took out my Fuji 6x7 rangefinder tonight and I´ve noticed I´ve got focusing problems looking through the viewfinder the ghost image doesn´t move!!
I´ve got a 1Ds II which I bought went it first came out, I use it continually and its a great camera but it just isn´t film!! I´m going to have to pull out my Canon 1VHS but I´ve never been a 35mm lover although I did enjoy my Leica M6, it´s just that I´ve always doubted the 35mm aesthetic.
Mike please, could try and give me some good reasons to work in 35mm B/W, there is no way my wife is going to let me fix my Hassy or Fuji at the moment and I need to get over this stupid phobia I´ve got for 35mm!!

[Helcio J. Tagliolatto]

Great text. That's why TOP is at the top.

[John Brewton]

Nice article, Jim. I enjoyed it. My neighbor has an original Nagel camera (1930). I borrowed it awhile back, took it all apart and cleaned it because it hadn't been used since 1950. It took acceptable images probably because it had a Leitz lens. It's a very simple mechanical camera and the size is super stealthy - it's like four inches across and really will fit easily into a pocket.

[John Camp]

Cool.

[Mike Johnston]

"It's a very simple mechanical camera and the size is super stealthy - it's like four inches across and really will fit easily into a pocket."

John,
Just don't try to load it quickly in the field. [g]

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

Paul,
I think you should get the camera you really want fixed, rather than force yourself to use something you don't really have much feeling for. As I've been saying, life's too short, etc....

Mike

[ted kelly]

From wikipedia,
"Traditionally, longcase clocks were made with two types of movement: eight-day and one-day (30-hour) movements. A clock with an eight-day movement required winding only once a week, while generally less expensive 30-hour clocks had to be wound every day. "

[carole]

I enjoyed reading this post.

Love that last photograph!

[carole]

I meant to add that I envy you your Arts and Crafts bungalow. ;-)

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I had a GS645 for quite a while; I patched two sets of bellows leaks myself, and finally gave up and sold it with a third set (which I mentioned in the ebay listing). It was a fascinating idea, but that camera ruined more photo opportunities for me than any other piece of equipment I've ever owned, and in the end I'm quite disappointed.

But for me, life's too short to spend my time developing film.

[Stan B.]

Paul- If you can't afford fixing it, here's a couple of reasons for the 35mm aesthetic: Bresson, Frank, Nachtwey, Eggleston, Wessel, Salgado, Friedlander, Winogrand, Peress, Gilden, Cohen, Koudelka, Mermelstein, Gibson, Richards...

Just a scant few who made their reps on 35. Get the... picture?

[Richard]

Nice article JIm - and it resonates with me in many ways. While I shoot a lot of digital, I still shoot a lot of film, and mostly with rangefinders. Coincidentally including an old but perfect Retina IIIc from the Stuttgart factory you mention, and a modern Bessa 667 which, like your Fuji can be conveniently slung over your shoulder or even put in a (large) pocket. 6x7 in your pocket!

The mechanical aspect also reminds me a few years ago when I had a breakdown with my old car - a UK Vauxhall Astra from the pre-electronic age. It was a simple-ish problem, the bracket holding the alternator belt tensioner had broken. The AA man (Automobile Association - not Alcoholics Anonymous) came and you should have seen the smile on his face when he said "I can fix that!" which he did by cannibalising some other redundant parts from the engine compartment. Wiping his hands afterwards he mused, "that was fun - with all this modern electronic stuff, my job is usual just to winch them up onto the trailer"

[Rico R.]

Frank Marshman repaired my Fuji GA 645 last year.

[chris]

not sure what you think you will need to 'relearn' if you get an m9. it has some quirks, true, but most you can ignore if you choose to and basically you can operate it as if it were an m6, etc. and the results are good. no, you won't find one for $8, but throw in the cost of film and processing for a year and you might come out ahead (i certainly do).

i have come to the point where even in pitch darkness, i am still using the m9 in preference to the 5d2 just because i can operate it directly, focus by feel, and have a decent chance of getting the photo i want. and it definitely is less imposing to my subjects.

[Doug Howk]

I prefer wooden cameras - easier for me to repair. But the mechanical cameras are fascinating - like a well-built clock.
As to bellows leaks, I use liquid electricians tape/glue; and glob the stuff on inside corners/leaks. Couple of my older cameras (80+ years) with original bellows are still light tight thanks to the glue.

[Mark Walker]

This isn't written very well, but it's a small insight into a personal appreciation of having a fine mechanical camera.
A few days ago I bought a camera that I thought I'd never have, a Rolleiflex TLR. It had just come into the dealers (Carmarthen Cameras) as a house clearance piece and, though not mint, it was up for £100 as a commission sale to move it quickly. Boy, did I move quickly ! I had gone in for a nice film compact - an Olympus XA or Minox - and came out with two things, a Rolleiflex 2.8C (Xenotar, ca. 1954) and a huge grin. The lens is immaculate and all shutter speeds on the nose.
I downloaded a manual at home and I was more impressed and pleased than when I had my most expensive camera purchase, a Sony A900.
I've always had a buzz for fine mechanical devices and quality engineering and for many years worked for a gentleman who collected old textile mill machinery, including mill steam engines and part of my job - I was employed as his commercial manager for industrial property- was to scout for such relics, some of which were still in use. Over years we collected spinning mules from 1890, power looms from the 1870's, archives, cupboards, steam engines, bobbin making machines, 50,000 bobbin samples covering 160 years, cloth and yarn winders, counters, scales, scutchers, devils, balers, etc., etc.
Ive always had a mechanical camera and have been lucky to use some exceptionally fine ones, but this one now has a permanent home to be used until I can no longer hold it. Why ? Because it's my connection to lost ages that I've been fortunate enough to witness probably the last of. Walking into a cotton mill at midnight listening, smelling and watching the poetry of spinning mules producing real yarn, clerks on Victorian high stools poring over figures, powder coated men fixing a steam engine at a soap works, women deftly knotting weft in a second from a flying shuttle,dimly lit figures under a bare bulb stacking cow hides, a family cotton mill owner recounting former days of industry in his now silent mill, unbolting line shafting over the scrapmans cutting torch below, countless images, all but a handful never recorded by my camera, but witnessed in the last 30 years. The feel and appreciation of a fine mechanical camera helps keeps me in touch with those images in my memory and for many things long gone, of a mechanical age that my children will know hardly anything of.
I'm only 46, but my children are growing and if I can recall and recount some of the ordinary things I've seen, it extends the memory of them, things most people thought had died out before my lifetime.

[Ed Kuipers]

A I own an old F5 analog camera (bought on a shoestring budget) and a few digital compacts (like the LX3 and the GF1). And personaly I couldn't care less which camera takes the picture as long as it gets taken. Every picture ends up in The Gimp anyway but only via various routes and with varying amounts of ease. But hardship does not evoke creativity and ease of use does not empair it in any way. But digital I can take up to 200 foto's a day and proces them, analog that would cost a fortune and an ocean of time. Therefore I stopt fussing about the issue altogether and just concentrate on F8 or F11 and the image within the viewfinder (and yeah the freedom of using different aspect ratio's on camera is something I would like on the F5).

Greetings, Ed

[KeithB]

Don't be too quick to dismiss modern automobile troubleshooting tools. (That is the subject, right?)

My 1998 Chevy Malibu developed a large ominous knocking under the hood. I knew it was valve related, but where to look? My low-end generic scantool told me that the miss was in cylinder #3, which was lucky since that was the accessible head. I pulled the head and found that one of the pushrods for that cylinder had pushed through the rocker arm. I replaced it and the thing ran like a champ.

[Ben]

Though I'm a younger fellow, and smack in the 'enthusiast' category photographically speaking, I'm in the same boat as all the others who keep life in old cameras. Mine are gifts from my father and grandfather, and letting them fall into disuse is almost as unthinkable as selling them.

[JonA]

Jim,

I will second John F. Opie's suggestion to take the clock to a clock or watch maker and get it cleaned and relubed. John was a little harsh in his post (possibly facetiously) but he's right. You don't know how long ago it was last cleaned and the more the gears move the more they may be becoming worn down by grinding the accumulated dirt and dried oil between themselves. I definitely don't have John's expertise but I do like to read about old clocks and watches and this is what everyone I read suggests. Plus it keeps clock and watchmakers in business and like camera repairmen, it is a slowly dying, but in my opinion, noble field.

I wish I had John's expertise on clocks and watches or old cameras or anything mechanical for that matter. I love those things. I just do not have the time and money to spend learning the skills as it takes lots of time and money for tools, classes, group memberships and specimen to practice on. Plus, I'm 33 so I came late to the mechanical world which was well on it's way to electronics while I was growing up. I don't even know what a carburetor looks like! I started reading Mike because of his reviews of older and manual cameras and lenses. Now I need to go post to tell him to write that film and darkroom book!

[Robert Burnham]

The clock probably needs a professional cleaning. Second, it's probably only approximately level, which is guaranteed to put them "out of beat."

Listen to the mechanism. Does the tick-tock sound evenly: tick-tock-tick-tock... Or is it more tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock?

If the latter, it's out of beat. That means the pendulum is not swinging evenly from side to side and the escapement isn't working right. In that case, it can't keep accurate time — or even keep running for long. Again a professional cleaning and adjustment should take care of the problem.

It will probably cost you about $100.

The mechanism used by Ingraham is similar to those used by Ansonia, Seth Thomas, Waterbury, and many, many others. They aren't complicated, but they do tend to gum up, 70 or 80 years after manufacture.

If you want, try a large public library for books on American mantle clocks of the 19th century. That'll give you some background on the clock industry that made these things. Most were in Connecticut, and they are a real American success story.

That was a location that abounded in clever meachanics and inventors. Besides the clock-makers, Samuel Colt benefitted from these folks, as did Oliver Winchester. And so did Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson up in Massachusetts...