After the Parrot got it so wrong yesterday, I decided to read the manual. It wasn’t much help, but did contain useful information such as ‘only the part of the scene that appears in the viewfinder will be in the photograph’ and ‘Only take photographs in direct sunlight’. I glanced out of the window and noted the very dark, gloomy and decidedly wet weather. Rats. Time for plan B.

For those who’ve never seen or used a No.2 Box Brownie, it’s a basic box camera from around 1901. It features a single element lens, one shutter speed and three unspecified apertures. On the plus side, It takes 120 film and has a tripod socket. With the manual as much help as the stuffed parrot, there was nothing for it but to figure it out myself. With the help of my old school ruler, I found it has a focal length of 105mm, and those apertures are f16, f22 and f32. Approximately. All well and good but I want to use it with the studio lights. Hmmm - there’s no flash sync and lens is focus fixed somewhere around infinity. Ah well, I solved those problems, and here’s possibly the first ever PaD taken with a No.2 Box Brownie.

It's 'the' clock btw...