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Debonair 120

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 At last I have found this old camera of mine.  This is the first camera I owned.  Probably purchased around 1967 as a present.  I have no idea of how much it cost at the time but it was most likely in shillings, not pounds.  This is the Debonair 120 roll film camera.  It is of course a copy of the famous Diana camera produced in China in the 1960s. This is a plastic camera with plastic lens.  It takes 120 roll film.  It has very basic controls.  On the side of the lens (above, to left of lens) is the shutter release button.  This fires the shutter everytime it is pressed and is not linked to the film advance.  Therefore multiple exposures are highly likely unless you wind on immediately after each shot. The back of the camera has the red film counter window which displays the exposure number printed on the backing paper of 120 roll film. The lens has two other metal sliders that control the aperture and the shutter.  The aperture has three settings: Cloudy - Hazy - Bright.  Moving thi
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Kodak Brownie 127

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 As an ex Kodak employee I have an interest in the cameras that we made.  I saw this Brownie 127 in a charity shop for £2.  The shutter was working so I brought it home. The Kodak Brownie 127 (first model) was manufactured in England during the period 1952 to 1959.  From 1952 to 1955 the front plate was plain (as in my model).  From 1956 to 1959 it had a cross-hatch patterned front plate.  There were two further iterations, the second and third model, with production finally finishing in 1967.  These were a popular camera with over a million produced in the first two years of production.  They are still easy to find and cheap to buy. The camera has a plastic body in what could be described as an art-deco style.  Without film it only weighs 220g ( nearly 8 oz).  It uses 127 roll film.  This is not a popular size anymore though it is still possible to buy it.  It is also possible to use 120 roll and 35mm film in this camera as you will be able to see below.  As far as I have discovered t
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Kodak Retina II Nr. 122

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This isn't a full entry but a report of a potentially exciting find.  On a visit to a charity shop I noticed a small brown leather camera case.  On opening the case I saw a Kodak Retina II camera in good condition.  It all seemed to work so I thought I was buying a 1950's Retina for £8.  As I work for Kodak Ltd I like collecting Kodak memorabilia.  On return to work I did a little research into the camera. It appears that this is a Kodak Retina II Nr. 122.  This is an extremely rare model.  Only about 4000 were made and lots of these were recalled because of the faulty lever film wind mechanism.  There may only be a few hundred surviving in the world.  It's value could be anything from a few hundred pounds, even into low four figure amounts (see Ebay shot at bottom of page).  Looks like it was a good purchase. The serial number is 959969 and it was built in late 1936 or early 1937 in Stuttgart, Germany.  It has a Compur Rapid shutter with 1s to 1/500th second plus B
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Sekonic Twinmate L-208

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Back in the seventies my first 'proper' camera was a Russian Zenit B SLR.  This was a fully manual camera i.e. it did not have a built in light meter.  There were three ways to get the correct exposure.  One was to use the exposure guide printed on the instruction sheet (later printed inside the cardboard box) that came with the film.  You would have to estimate the lighting from a range of examples and set the camera accordingly.  A variation on this is the 'Sunny 16' rule.  This states that on a bright, clear sunny day with the sun behind you, your exposure at an aperture of f16 is 1 over the ISO of your film.  I.e. for a ISO200 film the shutter speed should be 1/200th second.  Most cameras will have a 1/250th second setting so you would set to this and the exposure latitude in the film would mean you still got a good exposure.  Obviously you can adjust the shutter and aperture in stops to keep the correct exposure i.e. one stop change would be 1/500th second at
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Kodak Retina II - Type 011

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One of the advantages of working for Kodak is that I get to see our new technology ahead of its release.  I also have access to archives and information about our products.  As I spent 26 years in research and development I also have a good idea about the science behind analogue photography.  Another advantage is access to cameras such as the Kodak Retina II which I'm writing about here. The example I'm using is from a display case in my office.  It was made in Stuttgart in 1946.  It still has the hand written, in ink, label attached to it and references the Nagel Camerawerks who produced it for Kodak.  Nagel was bought by Kodak in 1931 and became Kodak AG. The camera came to the UK a couple of years ago when our Stuttgart office was being tidied up.  It probably hasn't been used much, if at all.  Let's see what it has got going for it. The Kodak Retina II Type 011 was made by Kodak in Stuttgart between 1946 and 1949.  It is a metal bodied 35mm camera with fo
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