I picked up this Ensign Ful-Vue for 50 lei at the Negreni Fair. The seller told me that he had originally bought it in the UK, which was actually one of the main reasons I decided to take it home.
Introduced in this form in 1946, the Ful-Vue is a British-made box camera that uses 120 film to produce 6x6cm photographs. Its enormous waist-level viewfinder makes it look somewhat like a twin-lens reflex, although the camera itself is considerably simpler.
In fact, there is almost nothing to adjust. The aperture is fixed at around f/11 and the shutter gives you a choice of approximately 1/30 second or a Time setting for longer exposures. Even focusing is extremely basic, with the lens simply pulling out for closer subjects. Exposure therefore comes down largely to choosing suitable film and having suitable light.
It is an interesting little camera and very different from most of the others in my collection. More than anything, I liked the idea of finding a British-made camera that had somehow made its way from the UK to a market in Romania before eventually ending up with me.
Photos taken with the Ensign Ful-Vue
