Jiffy Kodak V. P. - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 21 - Jiffy Kodak V. P. (Vest Pocket) camera purchased at the Westminster Antique Mall. I used my last roll of Rera Pan 100, getting poor images. This roll and the previous roll of Rera Pan did not produce the quality of negatives that I have gotten in the past. It could be the limitations of the two Vest Pocket style cameras, or maybe I need to get back to using Kodak D-76 developer instead of Caffenol. 

The Jiffy Kodak V. P. was made from the mid 1930's to the early 1940's. I fell in love with this camera when I saw it in the antique mall, with it's art deco design and the pop out bellows with the push of a button. It's quite compact when folded, being able to easily fit in a pocket, just as the name implies. It has very few settings - a fixed focus lens with instant and time, with a large and small aperture slider. The viewfinder is simply a fold out metal one, which worked fine in framing up my photos.

I shot the entire roll of film on my lunch hour in Baltimore one day last week. I wish the photos had turned out better, I went on different route than usual and would have liked to have better quality photos. Nonetheless, I like the grungy, antique look - I might be able to use them in a collage or mixed-media project.

I developed the roll in caffenol and scanned with Epson V500 photo using a nifty 127 film adapter that I purchased from ebay. I've been using it for a while now and it's so much easier to scan 127 negatives.

Kodak Vest Pocket Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

Week 14 - Kodak Vest Pocket Camera, also known as the "soldier's camera", carried in the pockets of World War I soldiers because of its small size. According to my internet search, this version of the Vest Pocket camera was made in Rochester, New York in 1912. The camera makes 8 photos on a roll of 127 size film and has a meniscus lens. It has a ball bearing shutter with speeds of 25, 50, Bulb, and Time. Aperture settings are Near View Portrait, Average View, Distant View, and Clouds Marine. The body is painted black with leather bellows, it looks like a mini version of a Kodak Junior 116 Camera in my collection.

I thought I would shoot street photography in Downtown Baltimore on my lunch break, and I managed to shoot more than half the roll on a walk to the Inner Harbor. As you can see, the photos are quite blurry, I think I didn't have the bellows fully expanded, or perhaps the lens is not in as good a condition as the camera looks. The camera looks really neat though, and will look nice in my collection, even if it doesn't work that well.

Film used was from my dwindling stash of Rera Pan 100 film - for future camera testings, I may try cutting down some rolls of 120 film using a method I saw on YouTube utilizing a cigar cutter. I developed this roll for 8 minutes in my usual Caffenol recipe, and scanned the negatives on Epson V500 Photo.

Kodak Brownie Bullet Camera - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

For week 11 of my 2016 - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks project, I dusted off the Kodak Brownie Bullet 127 film camera that's been in my collection for a while. I don't recall where I got this camera, but I believe it was acquired during the time that I was going to focus my collection on Kodak Brownie cameras (not likely now as I've gone in too many directions with my collection). The Brownie Bullet is almost identical to the Brownie Holiday Flash, made between 1953-1962, and was used as premium giveaway during the late 1950's to mid 1960's. It is a bakelite camera designed by Arthur H. Crapsey that produces 8 photographs on a roll of 127 film.

I loaded the camera with the only currently available film, Rera Pan 100 that I purchased from Freestyle Photographic Supply. The weather this week has been warm and sunny, so it was a perfect opportunity to get out at lunch break and take a walk around Baltimore with the Brownie Bullet in my camera bag. In my experience, Rera Pan 100 works best in bright sunny conditions. I usually process it with Kodak D-76, but not having any mixed up, I tried it with my usual Caffenol concoction.  I don't fuss too much with the developing temp, only using water that I've stored at room temperature, and using the same steps that I found on the Photojojo website a couple of years ago. I mix up the super washing soda, instant coffee and vitamin C in the same combination every time, develop for 8 minutes, use water for stop, fix for 5 minutes and rinse, with a final wash of generic Photoflo. I haven't experimented too much as I've been pretty happy with how the Caffenol has been working so far. I scanned the negatives using a 3D printed 127 film adapter that I bought from ebay on my Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner.