Anyone remember that
Box-Tengor 56/2 that never quite worked? Yeah. Turns out it does. It took some cleaning and dismantling, and it's still not pretty, but it's been upgraded from curiosity to user camera.
For those that don't know, a Zeiss-Ikon Box Tengor 56/2 is a bargain box camera. It's got a simple lens, two shutter speeds ("manual" and "probably around 1/30"), a surprisingly sophisticated array of fine-tuning options (three apertures selectable via slotting a tab into a groove) and even a three-step guess focussing system. Composition is done through a very squinty, very blurry, left-right reversed finder. There's one on top for portraits and one to the side for landscape.
Truth be told, for a box camera this is about as well-featured as it gets. You get cable release, a tripod mount, double-exposure prevention, a carrying strap, and even a protective shield over the frame counter in the back. It's also surprisingly small and easy to handle.
None of that changes the fact that it's still a box camera with settings that are approximate at best and take some experience to get the most out of.
(All images shot with Fujifilm Pro 160S, with some cropping and resizing)
That's not a starry night bleeding through on the right, it's dirt (possibly on one of the aperture lenses that slot in front of the main lens) and light leaks.
Close focussing is marked as one meter, but my uneducated guess would be to double that at least.
Indoors it all sorta comes apart; I'd hesitate to use this camera in anything but bright sunlight for best effect. I'm surprised this picture even came out the way it did.
I might give it another go now that I've at least confirmed it's in working order, even if takes a better eye than mine to really make it sing.
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