Kodak Jr. Six-16 Series III

November 2, 2016

Week 43 - Kodak Jr. Six-16 Series III folding 616 film camera. I'm not quite sure where I acquired this camera, it's been on my shelf for years looking rather grand with it's folding bellows and lens. Speaking of the lens, I mistakenly thought this was a Kodak Kodex No. 1 camera as labeled on the lens, but on further inspection found the tiny nameplate under the lens (had to get my magnifying glass for these aging eyes!) The f8.8 Lens focuses from 4 ft to infinity with shutter speeds of Time, Bulb, 25, 50, and 100. There doesn't appear to be a cable release thread or tripod socket so I'm not sure about using it in bulb mode.

The camera uses 616 film which I didn't have, so I respooled 120 film onto the 616 spool with two zip ties at one end to fill in the empty space on the spool. I've attached a photo showing the size difference between the 616 and 120 spools, and where I placed the zip ties. This places the numbers for 16 frames in the frame counting window and I used 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 for 5 perfectly spaced photos on the roll. The resulting negatives are quite large, very sharp, but there appeared to be a white glare in a small area of the some of the photos.

I took the Kodak Jr. Six-16 on a drive around town to some of the areas that I haven't been to in a while. The focusing was pretty accurate with the focusing ring on the lens. Framing was a little off due to the smaller size of the film, I should have aimed a little higher to get more of the sky in the photos.

Developing was done in caffenol for 9 minutes and scanned on Epson V500 Photo.

Kodak Six-20 Brownie Junior - 52 Cameras, 52 Weeks

April 1, 2016

Week 13 - The Kodak Six-20 Brownie Junior with respooled, expired Ilford FP4. I picked up this camera for $4.00 at the Maryland Steam Show flea market back in September. The skin was peeling off of the back a little, but the shutter appeared to be functional, plus the faceplate of the camera had a nice Art Deco Design.

it's a simple box camera that was made in the late 1930's to early 1940's. It has two aperture settings, f22 and f11 and two shutter speeds - instant and bulb. I found the f22 setting in bright sun to be quite sharp besides the massive light leaks on either side of the frame. I had taken the camera out on a lunch time walk in Baltimore on a cool sunny day. I was able to take a few candid street shots with it as it's not as conspicuous when shooting this camera while looking down into the viewfinder. I did have one woman ask if I was shooting with "that old camera" and could I still get film developed. I told her that yes, I was shooting photos with it and that I develop my own film, though film developing is still available from online labs. I was disappointed that I could only get 5 photos out of the 8, the winder jammed partially through the roll. I took the camera home and to my changing bag to retrieve the jammed film. It took some prying, but I managed to get the film out of the camera and successfully developed this morning.

The roll was developed in Caffenol and scanned on Epson V500 Photo.

Imperial Mark XII Flash - 52 Cameras

February 10, 2016

For week six of 52 Cameras - 52 Weeks, I have a camera that's been on my shelf for a very long time, the Imperial Mark XII 620 film camera. It is a plastic camera made in the 1950's by the Herbert-George Co. in Chicago and was made in various colors. It makes 6x6 photographs using a fixed-focus, single shutter speed, single aperture lens. I respooled Lomography Redscale 100 film as, according to a blog post I read on the Film Photography Project website, February is Redscale Film month. I found that shooting with redscale film with this camera requires lots of light, best to shoot with plentiful sunshine to get the best photos. I shot a few of the photos of favorite subjects on my daily commute home from my job in Baltimore, MD. The Prettyboy Dam is not too far off my journey home, I've made a quick side trip there on many occasions to snap photos with other cameras. The daylight was running out on the day I was there, and the photos I shot didn't turn out as well as they could have. I also have a favorite cemetery angel that is along the roadway at a country church that I pass each day, she has been the subject of many camera and film tests over the years.

For the remainder of the photos, Brenda and I packed a backpack picnic and headed out to Codorus State Park on Sunday with the intention of hiking the La Ho Trail around Lake Marburg, but upon arriving we thought the better of it with the muddy conditions from the recent snow melt. We ate our backpack picnic by the lake and then drove out to Glen Rock, PA to grab some photos of the town. There is also a place called Ruins Hall with lots of graffiti that I saw previously when we rode through Glen Rock on the Steam Into History train from New Freedom, PA.

The film was processed using a Unicolor C-41 kit from the Film Photography Project store and scanned with Epson V500 Photo.