Got the first two test rolls out of the Brownies back from the lab, and it looks like I have further to go. The pix out of the Hawkeye actually looked pretty good, but the Reflex 20 produced very uneven results, which probably means that I need to take it apart and clean and lubricate the shutter again. At least the cloud-formation shots from that camera turned out, so I’m getting one of them printed. I also dropped off a roll of film from the Bull’s Eye Brownie, and I’m really curious about what I’ll get back. Instead of shooting 2¼ inch square negatives as the others do, it makes a 2¼ by 3½ inch negative. Which, it turns out, requires special processing that will take a week instead of two days to get back to me, even when I only asked for a contact sheet and not for prints. The gods alone know how long prints would take, or how much it might cost me.
I picked a the best of the snaps from the Hawkeye, just so you can see what they’re capable of doing. My prints are five inches square; I’ve reduced them to 2½ in deference to those with small monitors. Keep in mind this camera can’t be any less than 42 years old, and it might be as old as 53. (I wonder if there’s a Web site with data on which serial numbers were produced during which year? Time to go Google . . . .)
 |
 |
| A nice French Provincial Revival house near where I got my flat tire fixed |
Grackles in the creek alas |
 |
 |
| Looking up the creek toward a small dam | Looking down the creek |
The wedding dress also came back from the dry cleaner and, as I feared, the satin edging didn’t come completely clean. However, L thinks she may be able to pull it off and turn it inside out to re-use, which would save the expense and trouble of trying to match the edging. She says that before she does anything with it, she wants T to be a live dressmaker’s dummy, so she can see how it’s best to approach the problem.
You will get a Dictaphone from Asmodeus at Dime Box. Fnord.
