A Day Out in Nazaré with the Bencini Koroll 2

A Day Out in Nazaré with the Bencini Koroll 2

There are a few cameras in my collection of the weird and wonderful that I keep telling myself to use and never get around to doing so, and the Bencini Koroll 2 is definitely top of that list. The Koroll 2 is a heavyweight aluminium Italian camera from the 1960s. It's an ugly, stocky beastie, really, and it certainly won't win any prizes, but what sets it apart from other 120 cameras is that it's half-frame.

When I first heard about the Bencini Koroll 2 I felt a slight sense of disbelief, too. A half-frame 120 camera, whoever heard of such a thing? In fact, it's not even really half-frame, the Bencini Koroll 2 will take twenty-four 3x4.5cm images on a roll of 120 film, so there's about 1.5cm of the film that doesn't even get exposed. Why Bencini didn't go for 6x4.5cm like Agfa's Billy Clack is anyone's guess, but there were have it. A not quite half-frame medium format camera. 

There are several models in the Koroll series, from 35mm to medium format, and even variations with the series. Mine is the Koroll 2 (with the number), which has shutter speeds of 1/30, 1/60, and 1/125s (plus B) and apertures between f8 and f22. But apparently there's also the Koroll II (with Roman numbers) with a more limited range of shutter speeds and apertures. Just for a change, I got the better deal.

We all went out on a day trip to Nazaré, and I thought it was time that the Koroll 2 joined us. In my New Year's intentions I was determined to use this camera with 120 Harman Phoenix, but for this test roll I used some expired Lomochrome Metropolis (Jan. 2023) that has been sitting around for a few years. For metering I used the app Camera Meter on the smartphone and rated the Metropolis at ISO 100, the lower end of its 100-400 ISO range. I think this app might overexpose by about 1 stop, but I always forget to adjust for this. For the last few frames, though, I did actually try to underexpose by 1-stop according to the meter reading. 

There are two red windows on the back of the camera, and when you load the film, wind it until the number '1' appears in the left window.  This is the first frame. Then, after taking a photo, wind on until the number 1 appears in the right window. This is the second frame. After taking the photo, wind on the camera until the number 2 appears in the left window (about five half turns), which is the third frames, and so on.

After finishing off the film during a lunch trip to Vagueira, I dropped it off at the lab, Forever Blue in Aveiro. Generally, I'm really happy with the results they produce, and they can be really fast sometimes. Sure enough,  after a few hours the zipped files of images popped into my inbox, and checking through tge images I couldn't be happier. 

The images came out great! Mostly I left the focus on infinity as I was photographing objects at a distance, but even at shorter distances the images came out great. I reckon I'm right that the Camera Meter app overexposes by about one stop since the images of the buildings in Vagueira were much better exposed than the metered shots in Nazaré, though I was delighted with those.

I've posted the whole roll in an album (https://www.flickr.com/gp/147583812@N06/465FtxB1MH) on my Flickr, light leaks and all, if you want to see the rest of the images. In conclusion, I was really happy with the Bencini Koroll 2, and I'm just disappointed that it's taken me so long to get around to using it. All in all, this test roll was a resounding success, and next time I'm definitely going to try some 120 half-frame with Harman Phoenix. 

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#Bencini, #Koroll2, #MediumFormat, #HalfFrame, #Welta, #Lomochrome, #Metropilis, #ExpiredFilm, #Nazare, #Portugal,