Daydark Street Postcard/Tintype Camera Repair, Safelight Filter Replacement

[HMNB32]

I recently acquired a beat up daydark street camera I am working on restoring, and have hit somewhat of a roadblock. For those who are unfamiliar, these cameras were made for vendors to take, develop and sell postcards or photo-buttons right on the spot, with a developing/fixing tank within the camera. To make this useable, there was a safelight on top of the camera so you could safely view what you were doing, keyword here is was...

My original idea was to use rubylith to replace it, but after ordering a sheet I found it to be non-transparent. For a normal safelight, no problem, but since I need to see through this it is unusable.

My next idea was to double layer either rosco R27 Medium red or LEE Filters Marius Red, and was curious if anyone had any experience with either of these, or anything else that would work. When the camera is all fixed up, I will most likely be shooting photo paper, or homemade blue-sensitive and orthochromatic gelatin tintypes in it, for an idea on spectral sensitivity.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

[pacviewcam]

The only modern equivalent I can recall is from the late 1970s to early 1980s when I first started working as a typesetter for a magazine. In a small empty office space we had a daylight stat (photostat) camera for enlarging or reducing line art -- type and stuff like that.

The thing had a processor built in and a plastic safelight-colored sheet that you could look through to see what you were doing inside the camera. I always figured it was just a standard red safelight filter.

Mind you, this wasn't used outdoors under sunlight, which would be much stronger. But a folding viewing hood or other shade to block out the sun's direct rays might be helpful.

Be careful to choose fixed grade photo paper, if paper is what you're going to use; variable contrast will need an amber safelight filter.

You can run some tests to see what might get you a medium grey on the paper. I think you'll be surprised at what you can get out of a setup like that.

Might want to monkey around with some lith film too, but that might not be so good because of contrast in the instant-process setting. Dilute paper develper in the darkroom is probably more appropriate for the film.

One more thing: I think I vaguely recall reading that photo paper, lith film and stuff like that tends to about ISO 6 to ISO 12 or thereabouts in speed. Sounds like a starting point anyway.

Good luck and I hope you'll post any results from your efforts

[pacviewcam]

Just had a "d'oh!" moment. You're gonna need to find positive photo paper; otherwise you'll get paper negatives. But you probably already knew that.

Speaking of rubylith, I'm surprise that you find it not transparent. There's no backing on it, is there? There might be adhesive on it; it was used on pasted up "boards" to black out portions of the layout.

Hope my ruminations aren't totally useless....

[jnantz]

I recently acquired a beat up daydark street camera I am working on restoring, and have hit somewhat of a roadblock. For those who are unfamiliar, these cameras were made for vendors to take, develop and sell postcards or photo-buttons right on the spot, with a developing/fixing tank within the camera. To make this useable, there was a safelight on top of the camera so you could safely view what you were doing, keyword here is was...

My original idea was to use rubylith to replace it, but after ordering a sheet I found it to be non-transparent. For a normal safelight, no problem, but since I need to see through this it is unusable.

My next idea was to double layer either rosco R27 Medium red or LEE Filters Marius Red, and was curious if anyone had any experience with either of these, or anything else that would work. When the camera is all fixed up, I will most likely be shooting photo paper, or homemade blue-sensitive and orthochromatic gelatin tintypes in it, for an idea on spectral sensitivity.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

look at what Joe van cleave is doing or has done https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbYm3Y-Gaco
what your camera is .. is the pre-curser to the afghan camera.. but your camera used a proprietary paper and developer
the developer was like a silver gelatin ferrotype developer, so it developed, bleached fogged developed and fixed in 2 tanks
some modern practitioners are using the new55 guy's FF#1 monobath developer to do things like this on glass Jason lane's glass plates
maybe it will help you with your adventure too. ruby lith film would be great. ...



have fun !
John

ps.
https://afghanboxcamera.com

[Jim C.]

I'm with pacviewcam, unless rubylith has changed, there should be a
backing / carrier that you peel off the the film and apply to whatever you're masking.

[ic-racer]

I'd think the Rosco RED would work. I put this on the lights of my enlarger. It is pretty inexpensive to just buy a roll and try it.