It was always going to be an experiment.

I read an article in a magazine while on holiday about the Lomo camera the Sprocket Rocket Panorama. Like you do I looked for one on Amazon. I found one for roughly £30’s so I clicked on buy.

The camera is very basic only two shutter speeds 1/100^th and B only two focus ranges  0.6 -1 metre and 1meter – ∞ and, only two aperture settings cloudy and sunny.

To make this experiment even more complicated (Which at the outset wasn’t the plan) I choose the film I had with me Ilford XP2 that is a C41 black and white film.

Anyway film exposed and removed from the camera (No mean feat you need king Kong thumbs). I went to what was my local lab. They told me they outsource all their film development now and that I would have to pay for a complete set of pictures and a CD and not just negatives as I used to charge over £20!!. Needless to say I said no. I’d have had to pay regardless even if I got no usable shots.

 So Part two of the experiment began .

I remember reading that you can get fair results with Caffenol.

“Wait a minute isn’t that a colour film??”

Yep.

So I thought what the heck and mixed me a batch of Caffenol to this recipe

500mls Water

8 g washing soda

5g Vitamin C

0,7g Potassium Bromide

20g Instant coffee (Real gut rot)

Inversion for the first minute then 3 inversions every 2 ,4 ,8, 16, 32 etc up to 1 hour (May have been a little too long)

Stop with water 1 minute

Fixed with T-max fixer for 6mins

Washed for 10 mins.

The negatives look weired but there were pictures. I scanned directly onto the glass plate of my Epson V700

Here are three . and one of the original scans. click to see them larger warts and all :0)

Not bad for an unknown camera with a colour chemistry film developed in what amounts to Instant coffee and washing powder. :0)

Here is a link to the Sprocket Rocket site.