Now, even though I just posted that my plans for my photolife are changing, I still have a few cameras with films inside. So I will be posting more reviews for now, but they will slowly die off.
One of the reasons for the change is because of cameras like this…I hate this camera. In fact I can honestly say I haven’t tried a coronet I do like. So this will be the last one I put a film in. I do have a few more, but due to my new plans for the future, I will not be wasting film in them.
My dislike of this camera is based purely on the viewfinder. I couldn’t see a bloody thing. It was clean enough, but you have to look through it at a specific angle to see anything. I rarely hit that sweet spot. So my test roll shot results were based purely on luck. I don’t think photography should be down to luck.
The one good thing about this 1950s camera is that it can take 620 or 120 film. That is handy, as I didn’t have to respool the film before loading it. Side loading by the way. To be honest, I also kind of liked the ratchety wind on mechanism. It clicked as you turned the knob, but a clicky knob can’t save it in my eyes.
The days I used the D-20 were dull so there was no need to use the built in filter for bright days. Oh I have to say, the plastic strap was equally annoying. It never quite went straight and was uncomfortable around my neck.
Not my favourite results. The one on the bottom, the field, was supposed to be of a cow, but I couldn’t see it in the viewfinder.
Yesterday I was browsing Facebook Market place and noticed and advert for what looked like 6 box brownies. They were £30, unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot, but the cameras in the photo were the basic box brownie type. I thought, well that is a bit much for 6 cheapo brownies. But out of interest I decided to read the description instead of just skimming passed it. Holy Moly, this wasn’t for 6 cameras, that photo was a taster. This listing was for over 60 cameras!
I couldn’t resist that so I sent a message and arranged to pick them up the next day, and not a minute too soon. Once I got to the location I found the cameras in a number of boxes in a garage. Later, looking through them I found a few were a bit damp, the bags were on the cusp of starting to get moldy.
I brought them into my house and started going through them. In all there totaled 67 cameras, nearly all different. Of those 3 didn’t seem to be working, but might be fixable and 5 were beyond help and were not worth fixing. Lots of them took 620 film which I have never tried and is not really available, but luckily many had an empty spool inside. So for the spools alone, it was worth the drive.
Once I had made a list and sorted them, I picked out 4 to give a quick clean and to retrieve the spools. One of those had a 120 spool jammed inside which proved to me it wouldn’t really work. Now I have a 620 spool in my hand I can see the diameter is a little smaller than 120 so they turn smoothly. I have previously opened a brownie and cleaned it so I had a tiny bit of experience on that front.
I had no experience respooling 120 film onto 620 spools so I watched this video.
I didn’t roll it onto a 620 then roll it onto another 620. I just unrolled it loose then respooled it onto the 620, it worked fine.
Then I loaded it into one of the cameras I had cleaned.
Not the sexiest choice, but it was now clean and it worked smoothly. I will try it out sometime in the next couple of weeks.
And here is a list of all the cameras in the lot.
Kodak Brownies (I just don’t want to write this loads of times) Six-20 Model C No.2 – 116 Cresta Six-20 Popular Six-20 Junior Portrait No.2 Popular Flash B Flash 20 C (four examples) 127 (three examples) Cresta 3 (Three examples) Six-20 Target Brownies with no other information (Six examples, one with a built in filter, one blue) Six-20 Model D (4 examples) Flash II (Two examples each with a flash attachment, one 4 version, one 5 version) Duaflex Modern No.2 44A Reflex 20 Bullet Starmite Flashmite
Kodak Hawkeyes Cartridge Model B (two examples) No.2 Model C Mod B B Portrait Star
Extra – Kodak Flash holder Model II in box
Coronet Popular twelve (two examples) Twelve 20 Every D-20 Conway Conway Popular Cadet
Other Makes Balda Frontbox Ensign E-29 (two examples, one blue – takes 129 film which is unavailable) Ensign Ful-Vue Ernemann 6×9 Box Brownie Type Camera **this could be the star piece, rarer**
Folding cameras – not working, might be fixable Kershaw Penguin Eight 20 Kodak Folding Brownie Six 20 Balda Baldanette
I definitely will not be film testing all of these. I will choose a few examples to compare and might think about an exhibition in the future. Otherwise they are going to be stuck in boxes and bags for a long time.
And if you got all the way to the end of this list and post…One camera, an unsalvageable Kodak had a 127 film roll inside. It looked in fairly good condition so I tried to develop it. In the end….there was no film, it was just the backing paper. I could use it to respool some 35mm onto it as there are a number of those kind of cameras in the lot.
