kris-bochenek

<p>My fellow classic cameras' lovers, I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed rescuing and shooting with this beautiful classic. Notice in the "mask" shot that the film chamber has a yellow sticker. It says that the camera was serviced in 1951 by Kodak, so nearly 30 years after its birth- just WOW. Now after another 60 years- I'm using it again. I also enjoyed the look on people's faces as I walked by with this camera mounted onto my tripod. One lady even stopped and watched me setup the shot.</p>

<p>Front view</p><div></div>

<p>Head shot</p><div></div>

<p>These shots were composed in the "brilliant finder" I tried to place my scene smack down in the center of the horizontal frame and it all worked out. The red window had to be taped shot to prevent any light leaks and since the film was narrower than 116, the window was useless anyway. All shots were from a tripod to get as little movement as possible. All were shot at 1/100 and the aperture was selected based on light conditions- I'm liking the results a lot. It can fit 6 shots on a roll of 120 the shots are about 2 x 4.25 inches, I set the start mark at far right, closed the back and did 8 full turns, so that got me to perfect start at 1st frame. I then did 3 turns for every frame, but the spacing was rather big and resulted only in 5 frames. Should I do 2.5 turns per frame, I would get smaller spaces and 6 frames in a roll- next time. So now to the porn part. Here are some shots of the beautiful Kodak.</p><div></div>

<p>and the last shot is of the same house but from a different spot.</p><div></div>

<p>This is a gate of one of the small gardens. The distance was measured with steps and it was about 12 feet from the lens. Shot at f/5.6</p><div></div>

<p>Shot of a pond where I got almost eaten to death by big fat flying - man - eating mosquitos.</p><div></div>

<p>Now another shot of an old cabin hidden behind some trees and weeds.</p><div></div>

<p>The panoramic shot of the house.</p><div></div>

<p>Ok that's done. Let's shoot. I took it out to my favorite test grounds- The Grove in Glenview, IL.</p>

<p>for the feeder roll I used two wall anchors cut and inserted into the film spool to space it properly inside the body. To create a mask for my panoramic shots, I used 120 lbs black card stock trimmed and taped to the back rails.</p><div></div>

<p>I have recently adopted a Kodak 1A Series III camera that was thought to be for parts only. Sure, it was dirty and needed few hours with goo' ole' Q-tips, but it had good bellows and a stylus pen. This Kodak was made in 1924 - that, at least is the latest patent date stamped on the body. It is equipped with Diomatic No. 1 shutter and Kodak lens - 3 element, I presume? The aperture goes down to f/5.6 After closer examination and some TLC it was time to try to shoot this camera. Wait, It uses 116 film and that was discontinued in 1986- Darn it!!! off to trash bin with it? NO - it can be easily adapted to shoot 120 film and create some neat panoramic shots. So I proceeded to make a new spool that will take 120 film and fit into the body. The spool was created by cutting up one 120 spool and super gluing it to another one. After that was done I got me a new take up spool.</p><div></div>

<p>I don't have father who shot with any classic cameras to inspire me to do the same- most of you are lucky in that sense. My trip into the darkside started almost as soon as my trip to the cleaner part of photography. In 2007 I got a Smena 8m camera and took my first images on film, first referring to time when I knew what I was doing, and I was blow away with color saturation and sharpness from a camera and a lens that was not, what I considered, a real camera. I later purchased my first real film camera, Yashica 635 and I was a believer ever since. Here is the very first image taken with Yashica 635. It was shot on Kodak TriX and commercially developed by.... I don't know who.</p><div></div>

<p>Too bad that the scene is so vague that it can't be applied to specific location.</p>

<p>To all of those who helped or try to help with the exposed film. I have finally scanned the one and only negative that was on the roll, at least the only one that remained. Here it is.</p><div></div>

<p>Neat work with neat camera, Rick. Did you every try to take pictures with those older bulb flashes? I always wanted to try those, but I have heard (read) that those bulbs do go off spontaneously in your hands - that puts me off. Anyways, thanks for the post.</p>

I'm glad you guys like those. I have spent hours looking at those adds, marveling at beautiful classy designs of some of them.

Rick, you got me there. My Roman numerals got a bit wonky, I guess.

<p>I got over 600 of these adds ranging from 1886 to 1923. They are so much fun to sort through and they offer wealth of information on how the camera market was at the end of IX and beginning of XX centuries. Oh, here is the link to Eastman- The Wizard of Photography movie. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfhsM15nElM</p>

<p>Finally, in 1921 Kodak made a cool gadget available - portrait attachment and timer release. Who needs digital when you can have Kodak.</p><div></div>

<p>1920- Who would not want to buy this Kodak Pocket Premo and it was only $13.85.</p><div></div>