Some old 127 Kodacolor-X

I was going through some old negatives and found some Kodacolor-X 127 negatives from 1968. The camera used was a Sears 127 that I ordered from Sears earlier in the year for around five dollars. Essentially the same camera as the Imperial Cubex.

First, the camera:

Lens is likely a single element. Enough distortion to make a "hipster photographer" do handsprings

Though I found some surviving prints, the negatives were in better condition.

my fifth grade classmates

Three more classmates

Younger sister and first cousin

My dad and younger brother

My mom and my younger brother

At the risk of turning this post into a family photo album, here's one more

Aunt and uncle: Dr, and Mrs, W,A, Hughes. Hughes, whom I called Uncle Austin taught Audio Visual Methods at Mississippi State University. My aunt (Nellie Hughes) was in charge of the Materials Center for College of Education at Mississippi State.

Those school shots are great!

I’m surprised to see that that old Sears camera had an LED mounted below the lens......

 

 

 

;)

Thanks, Moving On. I took the photo of the camera several years back so I don't remember what the red reflection was. Interesting that it used flashcubes and 127 film as most flashcube cameras took 126 film. I think Kodak did offer a 35mm that took flashcubes, though.

One of my classmates brought his Instamatic 100 to class and we saved the spent AG-1 flashbulbs to play with outside after lunch. We filled the empty bulbs with dirt and threw them up into the air. If done right the bulb left a trail of dirt behind it.

Fantastic. This is why we do it!

We used to fill hollowed out green Maypop fruit with fine dirt powder and throw them at each other.

Those flash cubes got dissected.....

Thanks. This was outside my personal experience -- I don't think I have ever shot a single roll of 127 film although I always thought that the little TLRs using it were cool.

Thanks, JDM. I used this camera a couple of years before my parents gave me an Instamatic 124. Of course, I was beginning to use some of my dad's gear. Somewhere there's a roll of Plus-X that I shot in my dad's Voigtlander Vitessa L at the 1968 Homecoming parade. He preset the exposure for me and focus and sent me to get pictures since he had to work that day, This was my first roll of 35mm film. I also used his Mamiya Sekor 1000 TL to take football photos from the sidelines when I was a freshman in high school. I didn't get my own 35mm until I got a Konica Auto S2 in 1974.

I remember one or two 127 box cameras around the house growing up. They took fair pictures. My first 35mm camera was a Yashica J7 SLR that I bought in 1966.

Some of the Kodak Brownie 127 models probably took better photos than the Sears camera that I have. I did, a few years ago, finally get a 127 camera that could take good photos: a Yashica 44A. It doesn't get a lot of use since 127 is scarce and expensive, but I did manage to slit and reload some APX 100 in it once. Of course, developing 127 can be an adventure as the film has a strong tendency to curl up into a roll due to the small spool diameter. And the longer it stays on the spool, the worse it gets. In my youth my dad encouraged my photographic interest. Once, as a present, he gave me a 25 roll pack of Ansco 127 black & white. I still have some of those negatives as well as some Verichrome Pan.

One neat little trick with cameras like this is there is a way to get around the limitation of a single shutter speed: brace the camera on a steady support and repeatedly release the shutter to give the equivalent of a longer shutter speed.

Great old pictures, Mike. Oddly, I had no experience with 127 format cameras as my father, who was a keen amateur, used 120 B&W and I followed, with my first camera being an Ensign Ful-Vue. The first colour film I can remember using was in a later 35mm Braun Paxette, and my kids went straight into 35mm cameras rather than the usual Instamatics of the era. Your results are really delightful.

The only thing missing in that second school picture is a potato in a mason jar of water, with green leaves springing from it, on the window sill above that radiator.

Moving On- I think we did the potato the following year. One cool thing we did was one of my classmates brought a magneto from a tractor and about eight or so of us joined hands with one kid touching the "hot" terminal and one touching the ground. The guy spun it and it shocked all eight of us. Don't have a picture of that, though.

Not sure where the rest of my 127 Kodacolor negatives are, but I found a scan of a 127 Ektachrome-X slide with same camera.

My sister on new bicycle in front of my parents' 1964 Impala

My very first camera was an Ansco Lancer. With two shutter speeds, two f/stops, and scale focusing, it was a small notch above the simpler box cameras of its day. Unfortunately, it hasn't survived 30 years of storage in a damp basement, though I did get another one recently and hope to shoot a little with it at some point.

 

Here are some 127 pictures I made with it during junior high years.

 

 

 

 

 

Nice work, Kent. And much sharper than the Sears.

My very first camera was an Ansco Lancer. With two shutter speeds, two f/stops, and scale focusing, it was a small notch above the simpler box cameras of its day. Unfortunately, it hasn't survived 30 years of storage in a damp basement, though I did get another one recently and hope to shoot a little with it at some point.

 

Here are some 127 pictures I made with it during junior high years.

 

 

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Very impressive! It's even more impressive that they've survived this long in such excellent condition.