Tag: vintage
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An Old Camera Gets a New Life
Admittedly, I own too many cameras. So when it was time to leave Madagascar, I invited a couple of friends – who happen to be the only other film photographers in Madagascar, as far as I know – to see if anything caught their attention. Safidy and Toni browsed my collection just days before they…
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Camera Review: the Pho-Tak Traveler 120
Never heard of the Pho-Tak Corporation and the cameras they manufactured around 1948-1950 in Chicago? Neither had I, until I unwrapped this Christmas gift from my daughter, who sparked my interest in vintage cameras about 6 years ago. It’s a solid little tank of a camera, made almost entirely of metal, with a worn black…
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Vintage Camera Test: the No. 1A Autographic Kodak Junior
The No. 1A Autographic Junior was made in various versions between 1914 and 1927. it’s got a beautifully detailed brass and enamel faceplate, a fold-out foot with the Kodak logo, and its name engraved on a brass plate below the shutter assembly. They all shot 6.5 by 11 cm frames on size 116 autographic film…
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Making a Camera Work: The No. 2 Folding Pocket Kodak Model C or Maybe D…
Among the growing group of people who collect and operate vintage film cameras, there are two types of people: those who quickly figure out a way to make an old camera work again, and those who obsess way too long over making an old camera work, to the point that it’s no longer really about…
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Vintage Camera Review: No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak No. B-4
The No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak No. B-4, despite its “pocket” moniker, is a hefty folding camera made between June 1908 and April 1909 which I got from my parents for Christmas a few years ago. It consists of a leatherbound wood-and-aluminum case with shiny nickel fittings that conceals intricate, shiny brass knobs, dials and gauges,…
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Vintage Camera Review: Kodak No. 1A Folding Hawk-Eye Model 1
This was once a beautiful camera. It’s made of sheet metal painted black and covered in leatherette, with a wooden baseboard and shiny nickel and black metal parts, and a little brass, complemented by red leather bellows. It folds open to sit horizontally on a shelf, or can be folded to be carried with its…
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Vintage Camera Review: No. 1A Folding Pocket Kodak
Of all my cameras, this has probably been one of the most difficult to work with. But once I figured out the problem, I firmly kicked myself. A couple of times, for good measure. Made of brass, wood, stainless steel and covered with leather, this 1906-1912 folder with red leather bellows is a beautiful camera. …
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Review: Canon FTb
I received my Canon FTb in a box of cameras I ordered on eBay when I was bored a few years ago and have run several rolls of film through it over the years (after I repaired it) with outstanding results, so I thought it would be appropriate to finally do a formal review on…
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Camera Review: Ansco B-2 Cadet
For reasons known only to them, camera manufacturers have, over the years, felt that “cadet” was a good name for a camera. There are at least 20 or so cameras (plus an exposure meter and an enlarger) called Cadets, to include at least eight made by the Ansco company. There’s the Ansco Cadet A8, B2,…
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Testing the 1937/8 Falcon Model F
yes, it came to me with a roll of film inside! Sadly, I was unable to rescue any images from it. I have no idea why, but I really wanted this old Falcon camera to work well. Sadly, I would end up being frustrated. Made by the Utility Manufacturing Company in 1937 or so (there’s…
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Reviewing my Newest Addition: A Rolleiflex 2.8c
One of the most attractive and most iconic vintage cameras ever made, in my opinion, is the Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) camera. Manufactured from 1929 until (in some form) 2015, the Rolleiflex was one of the longest-running camera models ever made. It remains one of the best-known twin-lens reflex cameras, which were a big…
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Shooting with the (1949-1959) Kodak Pony 828
I finally got around to shooting with a camera I’ve had for quite some time, the Kodak Pony 828, a bakelite camera produced from 1949 to 1959, as a transition between rollfilm and 35mm film. I have actually owned two of these, but the first had a sticky shutter and I passed it on to…
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My Entries in the #ShittyCameraChallenge
I laughed when I saw the announcement on Twitter: As I am known to use shitty cameras to make shitty pictures, this seemed perfect for me. I decided this would be a great opportunity to try out this camera I spotted some time ago in a camera shop in Chennai, India. It looks like a…
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Test: Three Plastic Cameras
If you’ve spent 20 minutes clicking around on my blog, you’ll know that one of the things I enjoy doing is loading up old, often inexpensive, but working cameras with film and taking them out for a spin to see how they perform. In this post, I review not one, but three cameras – one…
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Photography with a 103-year-old box camera
A couple of months ago I took on a project that has frankly consumed my free energy and time, and so I have neglected the blog a bit. But a couple of weeks ago I decided to pack up a bagful of old cameras from my collection for some local photography. One of them was…
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Vintage Camera Test: 1930s Franka Rolfix (I think!)
Last week when we visited the Anjezika neighborhood, I brought along a couple of untested vintage cameras from my collection. One of them was this folding camera with virtually no identifying information, other than the brand on the lens and shutter. This is one of the first vintage cameras I bought when I started collecting…
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Testing the Aires 35 V
I found this rangefinder at an estate sale in Virginia. It’s a heavy, solid camera and it came with a second lens, and despite never having heard of its manufacturer, I decided to add it to my collection. Being from a different era, its previous owner had engraved his social security number in the back…
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Testing the Mansfield Skylark
Funny story about how I ended up with this one. When you bid on high-priced items on eBay, it can be useful to decide the most you intend to pay, and then submit that bid just before bidding closes. There is always a chance your internet connection is not working, or that you’re confronted with…
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Testing the Minolta SR-T-101
Awhile back, I posted about the Petri 7S, one of two cameras my mother-in-law had passed along to me. This post is on the other camera, a Minolta SR-T-101. This Minolta is an SLR that first appeared on the market in 1966 and continued to be manufactured until 1975. From this website you can figure…
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Found Film: My Very First Camera
What was your first camera? Mine wasn’t the one pictured above, but it was close: A Kodak Instamatic X-15 like the one pictured below. This camera was manufactured between 1970 and 1976. I got mine toward the end of that period, when I would have been 8 or 9 years old. But mine is somewhere in…
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Vintage Camera Test: Brownie Reflex Synchro Model
The Brownie Reflex Synchro Model was made between 1941 and 1952 in the US, and until 1960 in the UK, and closely followed the (non-synchro) Brownie Reflex. It was called a “Reflex” because, like most SLR (single lens reflex) cameras still in use today, it used a mirror to reflect the image from the lens…
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Guest Post: Darkroom Blues – a Blast from the Past (part 1)
A friend of mine here in Chennai shared an article with me the other day, which he had written for the Photographic Society of Madras, a local photographic society founded in 1857. It reminded me not only how far we have come – in this day and age where everyone is taking perfectly lit/focused photographs at…
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Found Film: Trips to the Zoo and to Montreal
This is another post in the series on the photos taken by Raymond Albert in and around Rumford, Maine in the late 1940s and early 1950s (see “Introducing the Alberts”). In this post, I share two rolls of film, in which they took pictures of 3 different trips, including one to the zoo, and one…
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Camera Test: Ansco Shur-Shot Jr
The 1948 Ansco Shur-Shot Jr. box camera, a simple little contraption of mostly sheet metal and cardboard, uses a basic design that has not really changed much over 50 years. The only real “upgrades” from box cameras you might see from the early 1900s are the plastic winding knob, the bright finders on the top…
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Found Film: Albert Family Outings
A couple of additional rolls this week from the series of photos taken by Raymond Albert in and around Rumford, Maine in the late 1940s and early 1950s (see “Introducing the Alberts”). This looks like spring and summer, 1952, in which the family takes a trip to the beach, and also some nice shots from a…