Debonair 120

 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 this slider moves a metal plate inside the lens.  The plate has three holes of varying diameter.  The other slider is labelled: Time - Inst .  The Inst setting gives a fixed shutter speed.  The shutter is sticky so I cannot say what the shutter speed is but I would guess it to be about 1/50th of a second.  The Time setting is equivalent to 'B' (bulb) in that the shutter will stay open as long as the button is depressed.

The top of the camera features the unidirectional film advance and an aluminium plate with the Debonair logo.

The bottom of the camera has a simple latch to open the back for film loading.

Here you can see the aperture control slider on the lens.

And here is the shutter control lever.

As mentioned the shutter is no longer working correctly though I will have I look to see if I can fix it.  Therefore I do not have any pictures taken recently.  I do have the negatives from a film that I shot in the 1960s.  I have scanned some of these and they are included below.  The negatives do not have a film make on them so I cannot say what film was used.

Action Man in his brand new Artic warfare ski suit.  He is standing on top of the coal bunker.

                The back of our mid terrace house.  No cental heating and sash windows.

These next four shots are from the Watford Whitsun carnival procession along St Albans road.  The year is probably 1967.

As you can see, when the camera was new it was capable of taking respectable photos.  This was my first camera and it probably played a big part in my interest in photography which I still have to this day as well as influencing my lifelong career with Kodak in the UK.

Postscript - After writing this I had a look at the shutter.  I added a drop of isopropanol to the back of the mechanism and fired the shutter a few times.  The Time - Inst lever was stiff but suddenly became very loose.  At the same time a rattle from a loose part was heard in the lens.  This loose part came out through the shutter.  It is a mushroom shape fitting about 4mm across.  However the shutter now works correctly!  As long as the shutter time lever is held in place the shutter opens and closes correctly.  Now I'll have to load a roll of 120 film to see if it will still produce an image getting on for 60 years after I first used it.  I'll put the pictures up here if and when I get them.