The Kodak Pony II

[david_m]

<a href="//members.cox.net/mcsparron/Photos-2007/Kodak-Pony-II.htm">Kodak Pony

II</a>

[charles_stobbs3]

The sprocket movement cocking the shutter is great. It means you never click off a roll of film and then discovering you hadn't propely engaged the film in the take up spool.

[susanm]

Love the tank shot!

[todd frederick]

I had one of those when I first started to get seriously interested in photography. Mine was an earlier model. It cost my parents $25 at a pawn shop (a lot of money in the 1950s). I used Kodachrome 25 in it. I recently picked up one of them on the auction site for about $10. It's close to, or identical to, the model I had back then, a Kodak Pony 135 Model C with brown plastic body and solid field case. It even has a red dot on the top with "Kodak" in the center! The functions are much more basic than yours. In addition to setting the distance I have to cock the shutter, set the speed (B, 25-300) and set the aperture (3.5-22). It also has a guide for Kodachrome 25 and Ektachrome 64 using the "bright, cloudy, hazy" designations. I need to use it.<div></div>

[ben_hutcherson]

I have a later Pony IV which my dad used back in his teenage years in the 1960s. It passed along to him by an uncle who bought it new I presume a few years earlier.

 

The Pony IV does actually have a selection of shutter speeds from 1/30 up through 1/250, plus bulb. It also a top-mounted shutter release with a cable release socket, although the shutter must still be separately cocked. On the Pony IV, it is actually possible to release the shutter without having wound the film by means of a small lever on the back of the camera.

 

I'm constantly impressed by the quality of results it delivers when I can manage to get the focus correct. I never have quite mastered scale focusing. Looking through some of my dad's old slides, it appears as though he had the same problem.

 

The Pony IV came with a set of cheat cards for all of the popular Kodak emulsions of the day. Since the camera can read out directly in EVs, these were actually quite simple to implement.

[micah_henry]

I have the Pony 135 Model C, too, and the Pony IV. They are neat and rather sharp little shooters, often seen for a few bucks at yard sales and thrift shops around western N.C.

 

I have to be wary of my Model C's 1/25 sec. shutter speed--this tends to drag and then stick open first, before the other speeds do. This happens, of course, if the shutter has been neglected and the lube inside has thickened from years of heat, dust, drying, etc.

 

One of my favorite shots ever was taken with my Pony IV. It's a close-up (min. focus of 2.5 feet, I think) of a Pierce-Arrow hood ornament from a 1935 sedan. Wish I had a scan of it so I could post it here!

 

--Micah in NC