This is a great blog from Hackaday that shows how old iPads that are no longer usable can have their screens used as standalone monitors. Since Apple are openly criticised for their throw away culture it’s a reasonable way of keeping these old units out of landfill, and saving you some money as well. I love the example of using an old screen as an additional screen for an iMac.
Turning surplus LCD panels into stand-alone monitors with the help of a driver board is an established hack, and a search of eBay or AliExpress will …
Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?
When I was a tot at school, we were all enrolled in the Tufty club. Tufty was a squirrel used to promote road safety and clean living whilst teaching us mere mortals not to litter.
Keep Britain TidyThe Tufty club
50 years later I’m still sold hook line and sinker to this mantra. One thing you will never see me do is litter. Not so much as a cough sweet wrapper. If I have any litter at all it goes in my pocket until it can be disposed of properly. That Little Squirrel had a massive effect on me.
It’s a pity that others didn’t join the Tufty club as my country is sinking under a population that just doesn’t seem to care about their environment.
In later life I do take it further now, I will always look to recycle and reuse, that is a big part of my blog site, it’s what I do and I will not dispose of anything unnecessarily.
It’s the only constant I really have in my daily life apart from waking and sleeping.
Back in March 2023 in the early days of this site I threw some figures out there regarding the amount of cameras on the planet up to and including 2022, you can read that post here: Vintage Camera figures
In this post I’m going show a graph and some figures regarding the decline of DSLR ( Digital Single Lens Reflex ) in the last 12 yrs.
It’s becoming obvious that people are ditching the traditional camera frame for the mobile phone and tablet approach and the figures you see in decline for traditional cameras have probably gone in the total reverse and multiplied many times over for the latter. It hurts the brain to realise the total amount of picture capture devices out there, as well as the waste that this produces as a result of what has become a throwaway society in which we all must share some guilt.
I can honestly state that in the last 12 months I have purchased close to 60 Cameras, 18 radios about 14 portable cd and tape players and not one of them has been disposed of much to my wife’s displeasure. (To be honest she’s very supportive of what I do as it keeps me out of mischief.)
Anyway I’m starting to drift a bit, so in my last post back in 23 I think I stated that there were estimated in 2022 to be something like 45 Billion photo capture devices on the planet, enough for 5.5 units per person that inhabits this Ball floating in space, a phenomenal number. And now there are probably even more.
The traditional camera is being ditched though and as you can see in this graph supplied by Statista It is a seriously declining part of the consumer market.
DSLR decline courtesy of Statista
The number of digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera shipments worldwide has been on a downhill ride since 2012. In 2023, a total of around 1.18 million DSLR cameras were shipped by *CIPA companies all over the world. Despite the decline in shipments, the average price of digital cameras per unit has continued to remain stable.
In eleven years the annual sales of a DSLR has dropped by almost 16 million units in 2012 to a paltry 1.18 million in 2023, as I’ve stated the sales of mobile devices have probably quadrupled and risen in the opposite direction.
The question is, are traditional cameras going to be more of an antiquity in the near future or will there always be a demand? There are so many out there that I can’t see them commanding any good price through rarity as there are just so many out there.
I learnt my trade in photography back in the late 70s early 80s. Back then we did everything by hand from mixing the chemicals, manually printing using enlargers and various types of papers, dryers and drums. Dodging and shading, manually touching up any defects as work was produced. We even made dupe trans, did letrasetting and made the boss man tea. A computer does it all now….apart from the tea but I bet that’s on the horizon.
The chemicals we mixed were in 100 litre batches and were pure poison. E6 Colour developer contained Hydroquinone, and the final bath (Stabiliser) all this chemical was pure formaldehyde, we never had masks or gloves back then and after mixing a batch of these chemicals you were out in the yard for a good half hour coughing your guts up. There were many other chemicals involving ammonia and powdered citric acid and these were just a few of what we used. If you could only imaging the shear hell we went through for you to get your photographs.
Probably why I have such bad Bronchitis and Asthma nearly 45 years on.
What I’m saying is the digital world of today is immense progression and removes all that danger away from the business. It’s killed the business as much as any other big business out there. But it’s probably not as much fun or as much pleasure as doing the whole process by hand using traditional skills. Heck I bet that will kick start a conversation between the traditionalists and modernists.
Whatever way we look at things, time moves on, progression is always going to occur and we must (Even though we don’t always want to) adapt to change. And it’s going to change for everyone big time in the next decade or so.
Even though it’s like saying goodbye for a final time to a dear old friend. I enjoyed my role I played in it.
Supplementary notes
*CIPA stands for “Camera & Imaging Products Association”, which is the trade association of the Japanese photo industry.
The section “digital cameras” includes the following producers: Olympus, Casio, Canon, Kodak, Sanyo Electric, Sigma, Seiko Epson, Sony, Tomy, Nikon, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Hoya, Ricoh.
I have tonight added a new gallery to complete the Halina A1 Reflex renovation I completed in August of 2023. The gallery can be found by using the links in the margin or by clicking HERE.
Negatives on light tableNegatives on light table
As I don’t have the correct mask for my scanner I have had to go about getting the photos on the site in a peculiar way. Firstly I take pictures on my phone and then invert them to get a positive image, an action that I discussed in a previous article that was posted HERE.
Please don’t expect anything too fantastic, it was a test roll and mistakes were made, but a lot of enjoyment was had getting the results.
I’ve managed to obtain another old box type Pseudo TLR camera at a reasonable price in a very good condition, well, at least the pictures seem to indicate this, I’ll just have to wait until it’s in my hands to know for sure.
Here is some history on this camera, I will cite the reference at the end:
Introduced in 1950
Pseudo TLR
One speed rotary shutter +B
Use both 620 and 120 roll films
Flash sync
Built-in green filter
Body: metal
Coronet Box Cameras are medium format 120 & 620 film cameras made by Coronet in England.
Coronet was a British camera maker based in Birmingham. The company was formed in 1926 by F.W.Pettifer. It manufactured a variety of cheap box and folding cameras until 1967. After the war it worked together with the French company Tiranty to avoid French import restrictions. Several Coronet camera models were made in France, some with Boyer lenses, and some with instruction imprints in French. Coronet also had their own brands of film, including Corochrome.
The F-20 Coro-Flash by Coronet is a simple camera for 6×6 cm exposures, but one which offers a few twists on the usual box camera. First, its centered viewfinder window and (small) folding hood give it a certain faux-TLR styling. Secondly, it was designed (and proudly labeled) to accept either 120 or 620 film sizes. Finally, it offers flash sync, for example when using its namesake Coro Flash flashgun.
This camera was in such a good condition that no maintenance was required. In fact it went straight onto eBay and sold within 7 days. Was a lovey little camera and commanded a good resale price.
A cracking little example of a unit that was in production between 1946-60. The leather pouch is showing signs of age and wear and tear, it has a small split and needs sewing, seeing it’s age this is to only be expected. I shall attempt to clean the cloth with a light detergent solution to remove the dirt and will then treat the leather to make it supple again, the buttons can be retouched with some black paint.
The unit itself just needs a clean inside and out, the hood needs a repaint, the mechanism seems to be good and both exposure settings are operating as they should. The exposure setting switch as well as the two synchro pins show signs of corrosion, I may need to buff these up or again source replacement parts. I may need to source a new strap. On close inspection it seems the mirror is damaged, looks like water damage on the underside but I won’t really know until I get it all dismantled.
Brownie reflex dismantled
Well today I have taken the unit apart, I’m really surprised just how clean the unit is inside after all these years, however there are a few issues. The hood is rusty and restricted in its movement, I have fixed this issue by smoothing out a few small bumps and freeing the spring mechanism with some camera oil, it works well now (see video below) however I still need to rub down and repaint. The lenses have been cleaned, the viewing prism has been cleaned and I am happy with these, the shutter works well so I won’t be touching this.
Brownie reflex mirror damage
The mirror that I mentioned earlier in this piece is not water damaged as first thought, it looks as if the original glue used to fix the mirror has damaged the backing hence the mark you can also see in the video.
Lens hood working and damaged mirror
To repair this I will be using a very thin piece of acrylic mirror that I will cut to size, I’ll show you how I have done this later in the report. The case is to be cleaned and a stitch repair is needed, some small touch ups are required but in general there is not an immense amount to do to get it back to how it used to look.
Lens hood: The lens hood is opened to look into the lens. It was quite pitted, rusted and chipped so I have buffed it down, cleaned it and repainted it. I’m pleased to say it’s a good finish and I’m pleased with it. Job done 👍
Lens hood before and after
Neck strap: this is the original strap or should I say cord. Severely frayed both ends this needed repair, one of the easier tasks to do. I’ve cut the ends off losing about 10cms of cord, the crimps are unusable however the two crimps where the screws attach to the body were salvageable and I rewound the cord back around these and secured this with a pair of pliers.
Cable neck strap pre fixing
Next I sewed the two pieces of cord together to make up for the loss of the original crimps, I then used two lengths of heat shrink tubing to further secure the cord and screw crimps.
Cord sewn, and then heat sealed
I think you’ll agree, nice simple repair, sympathetic to the original and will last a few years longer. Job done 👍
Camera case: in layman’s terms the word knackered should be used. As old as it is, it was quite dirty and the leather was tired and brittle. I’ve only used the suds off of hot water and tablet soap to clean the exterior and interior and this will do as it’s quite delicate anyway. If it doesn’t survive this treatment then I will dismantle the case and use it elsewhere. However the clean up was successful, I’ve now given it some treatment to moisturise it as such and it now looks completely renewed.
Before and after case cleanup
I will leave this overnight for the treatment to be absorbed I’ll then give the case a light buff up.
Leather repair complete. Leather stitching not my favourite pastime
Apart from a couple of stitches that needed putting in I’m happy with the case and will not attempt anything else with it. Job done👍
Mirror: Today the very thin acrylic mirror sheet arrived so I could cut out the new mirror I required to replace the damaged one. It’s exceptionally thin and I have glued it to the original mirror to cover the imperfection. I didn’t fancy seven years bad luck for damaging the mirror whilst trying to remove it.
Before and after mirror replacement
I was really pleased with the outcome here. This is a photo of the view through the new mirror
New mirror viewed through top of camera
I’ve cleaned the lenses as best as I can however the years have left them slightly pitted, no concerns with this though as the viewer is separate from the actual capture lens.
With this I am satisfied the camera has been sympathetically restored, it’s been reassembled packaged in an airtight bag with a silica desiccant sachet and put back into my personal collection
The completed project.
Time to put this little project to bed now. I’ve really enjoyed this one and I think these little old cameras will become my go to’s of the future. I’ve learned a lot and have learnt well from my mistakes along the way. Time to look for the next subject. So, for the last time on this project I get to say…..
Cameras go back a good few years since the first photograph was taken back in 1826 – 1827 by Nicephore Niepce. Back then he used a bitumen substance on a pewter plate as his light sensitive base for his photo of a rooftop in France, the exposure was somewhere around 8 hours, oh how things have progressed.
I’m putting this piece together to give the reader an idea of just how many cameras were produced between then and now if I can pull sufficient data together. The issue here is that cameras took many forms, from boxes with holes punched into them through to disposable items that were popular throughout the eighties and that are now seeing a resurgence in popularity due to people wanting physical prints rather than trawling through many thousands of images they have stored on their electronic storage devices.
What defines Vintage?
Well that’s a good question. Even good old digital is classified as a vintage if you go back to the 80s and observe what was around then. Camera companies pump out version after version of cameras each one supposedly better than the last, I should imagine almost every family on the planet has an old camera of some sort in their possession, those old Kodak Brownies et al were absolutely everywhere. Truthfully I’d expect anything over 10 years old to be vintage, they are also reducing in popularity now due to the appearance of the smartphone….. as I have said previously, everyone is now a photographer.
Some figures then..
It’s pretty much impossible to compute the really old lines of cameras as there were so many brands and very little in the way of monitoring output, sales of the big brands were immense as we know, the likes of Kodak monopolised the photographic arena for decades and they absolutely flooded the markets world wide.
Digital cameras peaked in sales of 121 Million individual worldwide unit sales in 2010 deemed to be the height of camera demand pre Smartphone arrival on the scene. Since then sales worldwide have decreased to about 8 Million units a year in 2021 and continue to decline, that said there are an awful lot of units out there more than likely stuck at the back of a drawer or hidden away elsewhere within the household.
The big number is this though. According to Visual technology and investor LDV Capital the numbers of cameras around the world will have risen to at least 45 Billion by 2022. Ok, that does include the smart phone and almost 770 Million CCTV cameras as well. Think about that figure for a moment, there are currently 8 billion people on this planet and this figure equates to there being 5.5 cameras available to each and every one of them. A phenomenal number you’ll agree.
So…
The sole purpose of this page to me is just to highlight the amount of cameras out there, I want to do my little bit to repair, recycle and repurpose a small number of them but I also want to point out that there is no shortage of stock….😎
So most of my adult life I have convinced myself that despite having a hatful of interests there was nothing that I was particularly any good at. It’s strange really how you always knock yourself back if you don’t have that much confidence. In truth it really is quite the opposite. I started out in Photography way back in the days before digital when you had to get your hands wet to produce results, for me the old Silver halide era of photography cannot be matched or equalled and personally I think anyone can be a photographer these days, however give them developing tanks, print dryers developers and fixers an enlarger and then ask them to dodge and burn prints and then retouch them and the result might be slightly different. I remember days when I used to photograph weddings and shoot maybe 6-8 rolls of film, a friend of mine in the digital arena shoots maybe 2-3000 exposures per outing! Wow, she will never experience the fear of having a blank film post processing.
On top of this I’ve had an interest in electronics from an early age, I used to visit jumble sales as a kid, buy old radios and repair them and sell them on to get some pocket money. I obtained a city and guilds in electronics back in 2000 as well as an “A” class Radio Amateur qualification (M0ESB) so yes I’m a Radio amateur as well. I could have ventured into a job role utilising this however I preferred to maintain it as a hobby as I didn’t want to fall out of love with electronics.
I also enjoy arty stuff, I love painting both pictures and stuff, tarting stuff up – you know what I mean. I have recently had lessons in the Bob Ross method of painting with a local tutor and I really enjoy this. I’ve always enjoyed making models and painting them and I like building small dioramas as well so I can be quite crafty when I put my mind to it.
So to return to the start when I was searching for my worth as such, I have decided to combine a number of these hobby/experiences and I will be purchasing old unloved equipment, making it good “Tarting it up” and hopefully moving it on either for decorative purposes, for use as props or even returning it to its original purpose.
The site is new and I’ve kind of jumped the gun by getting this up and running before I have any projects on the go or even stock to use in those projects. Hey ho, that’s the way I roll is anyone else as ass about face at doing things as I am?
Hopefully I can record my progress through this site that is a new venture for me as of Feb 2023.
Maybe you as a visitor will follow my journey, maybe you will pass on through, however please feel free to feedback any constructive advice as we can all learn from that.
Foxes Den 
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