Testing a Junior Box Ensign

While I've been experimenting with Catlabs film, I have added a new box camera
to the collection. This is the Junior Box Ensign, which predates the first Ful-Vue by about a decade. They were made between 1929 and 1933 and there are two striking differences from the Ful-Vue range. First, the camera is much bigger, particularly taller. This is because there is no inner cone for film loading. Instead, the take-up and loading spools sit above and beneath the film plane respectively.

The other obvious difference is the viewfinder. The Ful-Vue finder is huge. The Junior Box has two finders and each is miniscule. The one on top is for vertical shots and the one on the side is for horizontal shots, just like the Ferrania Zeta Duplex I tested not long ago. I thought composing on the Ferrania was hard. This was harder. No wonder the Ful-Vues were so popular.

There were no details in the camera's literature regarding its aperture or shutter speed. In the end my husband and I made an educated guess at f/12.5 and 1/40. Judging from the results we were about right. The lens does not focus closer than 10 feet.

I ran a roll of Catlabs X Film 80 through the camera. I had a wonky horizon on nearly every shot. Interestingly I also ended up with a lot more sky than I intended with some of them. The subjects were so tiny it was hard to know at times if I was even pointing at the right thing.

Another quirk of this camera is that the shutter fires when you push the lever in either direction, which took some getting used to. 

Anyway, I ended up with eight 6x9 exposures and although the compositions of some are questionable due to photographer error, the lens performed well, producing a minimal vignette. The images aren't tack sharp of course, but the vintage character of the lens is nice.

Here are some of the results:

A nice rural scene

More sky than I wanted, but still a nice capture. The horizon was straightened a little afterwards.

My favourite shot, though still not straight.

It nicely captured this moody scene.

A ridiculous amount of sky. I must have tilted the camera a fraction before shooting.

So, more practice required with the Junior Box Ensign. A nice camera though. Because it is so big it's easy to steady so there is less chance of camera shake. I was a bit worried the shutter lever might get nudged in my bag as I was walking, but there were no accidental exposures.

During production this camera was a budget model available for 8s 6d. It was also available through premium schemes in return for tokens, and would arrive with a roll of film. I think I'd have been delighted with it, once I got the hang of those tiny viewfinders of course.