After turbulent years in the late 1960's that saw the cessation of domestic camera production, Argus emerged as an importer and marketer of rebadged photographic equipment.

The Argus / Cosina STL is a solidly built example of collaboration. It dates to circa 1970 and has some of the best features of SLR designs of the day: a reliable square Copal type shutter with metal blades, m42 "universal" lens mount, microprism focusing, and through the lens metering.

I bought this body in online auction at a low price. Mechanical functions was excellent. The meter circuit was dead, but I can live without that. It needed a new mirror bumper and rear foam seals, and then was ready for testing.

In the back of my kitchen freezer I found a sample short roll of Focal branded film from K Mart with a "process by" date of July 2000.
After thawing it went into the Argus Cosina STL body, coupled with a clean GAF Auto f:1.9/50mm lens in m42 screw mount.
For my test, I did not leave home. I rated the ASA 200 film as ASA 100 in consideration of the age of the emulsion.
20 year old film in a 50 year old camera!

After dinner the film went through my usual Caffenol developer of washing soda solution, vitamin C, strong coffee reconstituted from instant coffee crystals, and followed by saturated salt solution fixer.
The results were weak, the emulsion must have degraded despite the time in the freezer. Images were visible to the naked eye on the emulsion side, but my transparency scanner had difficulty making sense of much of it.
So I put the film up against a light box and photographed each frame with a digital camera body and macro lens. Those results were a bit easier to work with.
In software I reversed the negatives into positive images and worked on them. The sepia tint was added because I liked the look.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are ©2020 E.J.Kowalski
Thanks! Ed