Ensign Selfix 820 and a roll of FP4+ in Birmingham

I have long been interested in trying a camera with larger negatives, but because the Fuji GW690 is rather expensive for something that might turn out to be of no more than novelty value, I have thought about getting an old foldable camera for some time. I recently acquired one – an Ensign Selfix 820. Trying the shutter it was obvious that the shutter was hopeless at anything longer than 1/25 sec. 1 sec sounded more like 4 or 5 sec, because it seemed to stall before the end. In addition, I was not sure that the lens was ending up parallel to the film plane. The camera is versatile in that it has two flaps that can be folded down so you can choose whether to take twelve 6×6 or eight 6×9 shots. Clever, though I guess most readers will be familiar with the idea.

Finally, when I put a dummy film (the paper backing from a used roll) I failed to see the frame numbers for 6×6 in the little red window in the back (there are of course two windows).

That meant there was no choice but to test with 6×9. Despite that, I decided it was worth putting the cheapest film I had (Kentmere 100) through it. Being prepared for a complete disaster (as happened with another camera that is now en route to a repairer), I just took my local railway station, and was surprised to find that the exposures weren’t too bad.

So I loaded the camera with a roll of FP4+ and took it to Birmingham for a morning, to see what I could get. These are the results. The film was developed in ID-11 and then scanned at 3200 dpi. The only adjustments on the computer were applying auto levels in the Epson scanner app, straightening horizons and cropping to get rid of black borders, and some removal of dust spots. Nothing else. The first is probably my favourite.

Now several of the Town Hall in the city centre.

I put this crop in (1:1) to show what the detail is like. Given that it is a 1:1 crop from an image that is over 70 megapixels. I haven’t compared this with ones taken on my OM4, but it does not look too bad to me.

Now one showing the tram. If it were a better image I’d have corrected the error in cropping it.

And finally one of New Street Station, not from directly outside.

Overall I was happy with most of the shots, though there is room for improvement, more care over focusing (I left it on infinity). Probably not a sufficient improvement over 35mm shots, let alone a high megapixel DSLR, to justify the cost of 75p per negative (plus cost of processing) but I like some of the results and it was an interesting experience.

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