The other day I came across a Petri Racer. The Petri Racer is a rangefinder camera from the 1960s, and as it was indeed very cheap, I decided to give it a test. I decided to use an Ilford PAN 400 for this test, and since the conditions were somewhat dim, I shot it at 800 ISO.
I went out for test shooting in very risky weather, and sure enough, when I was ready to shoot it started pouring down with rain. I went to an interesting architectural area where I had shelter.
I did not know whether the Racer worked or not, and to be honest, I had never even heard of the brand. Regardless, I filled the Pan 400, and decided to develop it in Rodinal 1+100 using stand development. I made this choice because the Pan 400 is a relatively grainy film.
My development cycle for push one step with this film is 75 minutes with careful agitation at 45 minutes. The water temperature is 17 degrees. The negatives are scanned with my Plustek Opticfilm 8100 using SilverFast 8.8.
I am very happy with the results from this test round. I now know that the camera works and is capable of rather sharp images.
A real Cheap Camera Adventure.
«Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.»
– Ansel Adams –
Cheap Camera Adventures 