Box cameras

[randolph45]

What???

What???

Thanks for the link lynnb. Some good pics there on the first page.

Anyway, from the pic you've just posted here, I'm sorry, but you can't join the "Talentless Bozo's" club.

As a member of good standing in the "T B Club" I can say any and all comers are welcome to join.😎

 

[lynnb]

many thanks Panagiotis 🙂

 

[seany65]

@lynnb, Hmmm, It seems that your pics are too good for you to be an actual member of the "Talentless Bozo's club", but I suppose you could be our secretary, considering you have thanked someone called 'Panagiotis' for complimenting the photo you posted, even though there's no member of that name.😛🙂

@greyscale, somehow, that Hunter-Gilbert box camera looks very much like a modern designer's 're-imagining' of a box camera, that would sell for a ridiculous amount of money.

@randolph45, Huh? You'd let in just 'anyone', even if they ain't "Talentless Bozo's"?😱

 

[Daryl J.]

Add another vote for the Kodak Brownie No.2 model f.


It does surprisingly well.

 

[johnnyrod]

Nothing has made me want a box camera until I saw O2 Pilot's photo near the top. I am now perplexed.

 

[seany65]

I've got a few questions for who use box brownie No.2 model f's:

What film speeds do you use?

Do you process your own films?

I don't have the facilities to process/print my own films so is there any point me getting one if I can only get them done commercially?

 

[tunalegs]

100ASA for "average" days. 400ASA for cloudy days.

If you're photographing under bright sun, or photographing a bright object, use the middle aperture.

The smallest aperture, counter intuitive as it may seem, is for time exposures. It's easier to mess up a two second exposure than it is to mess up a five second exposure, so you use the smallest aperture to make counting easier and reduce mistakes.

If you shoot color film, any good shop should be able to process it cheaply, most places charge a lot more to process B&W. Do check that they can print or scan 6x9 as it is not a common format these days.

 

[MikeMGB]

The timing of this thread is interesting, a friend was recently given a Brownie Target 620 by his parents, he asked if I could help him run some film through it, so I dug out a 1916 Brownie Junior. We're going to go out this week and see what we can do.

 

[02Pilot]

Nothing has made me want a box camera until I saw O2 Pilot's photo near the top. I am now perplexed.

Thanks, Johnny. The nice thing is that they're almost all cheap, so you can grab one to try out with very little financial risk.

 

[lynnb]

I've got a few questions for who use box brownie No.2 model f's:

What film speeds do you use?

Do you process your own films?

I don't have the facilities to process/print my own films so is there any point me getting one if I can only get them done commercially?

Back in the day, a lot of people used Kodak Verichrome Pan which you could buy at your local chemist/drugstore in 120 or 620, rated EI 80 but sometimes rated at 125.

I use slow speed (ISO 100-200) film mostly because I use the camera in bright light. Shutter speed is about 1/50.

You don't need a darkroom to process your own bw films, only a changing bag and a daylight tank like a Paterson. Most people scan their negs - which you can do with a digital camera at a pinch.

If you wanted to you could make 6x9cm contact prints in your laundry or other dark room. A bit on the small side, but that's what we used to do when I was young and the Brownie was the family camera.

 

[tunalegs]

I thought I'd throw in this old result from the aforementioned Agfa Ansco Shur Shot Special:

These were taken in half frame mode, so in effect you get a longer lens. One image was made with the close focus setting, and one was made with the normal focus setting. Images are slightly softer than in reality, due to this being a scan of a print rather than a scan from the negative. I haven't touched the thing in about five or six years but I'm inspired to drag it out for another roll now.

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the replies and info.

 

[tunalegs]

This thread inspired me to pull out a Kodak Cartridge Hawkeye Model A, I've had for who knows how long, but never have run film through.

The results were ok. I shot color and the lens renders about the same as one from a modern day one-time-use camera. With CA and focus fall off on the edges, but decently sharp in the center. I decided to "turn off" the reds (desaturate and darken) in photoshop before converting the files to greyscale to mimic an orthochromatic look. This looks much more interesting than the color files did, I think.

Hawkeye'd Dummies by Berang Berang, on Flickr

hawkeye'd SAAB by Berang Berang, on Flickr

One of the tricks to getting the best out of these old boxes is to remember the focus is set to not quite hyperfocal distance, so distant backgrounds will always be soft. If you want something sharp it really needs to be between 15 and 30 or so feet from the camera, if it's in that zone the results can be quite sharp. Outside of that, less so. In the days before enlargements this slight fudging of the hyperfocal distance didn't matter because the prints were too small for anybody to tell that scenery was not exactly in focus. Today though its a lot more apparent.

 

[seany65]

@tunalegs. Thanks for the info. I didn't know any of that about their hyperfocal distance 'weakness'. I'll remember it from now on.


@johnf04. Yes I have, unfortunately the shutter speed seem sto be around 1/30 which is a bit slow for me.

I've decided to put the idea of getting a box camera on hold for now as I've still got to get a couple of camera bags and I'm having a little trouble finding the 'right' ones, though I have got a few candidates.

 

[tunalegs]

boxes by Berang Berang, on Flickr

I bought three... unfortunately they're all so cheap it's tough to resist. One of which, that I hadn't heard of until I bought it, was the Certo Doppel Box which contains a two element lens, two selectable focus zones, three apertures, and I, B, and T settings. It may be worth looking for one of these.

 

[WJJ3]

I've decided to put the idea of getting a box camera on hold for now

The box camera itch is a good one to scratch! When it comes back have a look at some of the beautiful cameras Kodak made in the '50s when box cameras were already obsolete 🙂

 

[tunalegs]

Don't those Kodaks use 620?

It's sort of weird but box cameras didn't really disappear until after the introduction of the Instamatic. 126 finally killed that segment dead in the 1960s (although a few 127 box cameras languished into the 1970s).

 

[WJJ3]

Don't those Kodaks use 620?

Yeah, my camera is specified for 620, so I snip the edges of the 120 spool with fingernail clippers. Works great 🙂

 

[tunalegs]

I've done the same to use my oldest box, an Ensign which needs 117 film. 117 was the same as 120, but only came in six exposure lengths, consequently the spool ends are a smaller diameter. I'll have to do another roll through it soon too I suppose.

Ensign 2¼A Box Form camera by Berang Berang, on Flickr

@tunalegs. Thanks for the info. I didn't know any of that about their hyperfocal distance 'weakness'. I'll remember it from now on.

A while back I tested some of my cameras with a ground glass, checked against what was written in the instruction manual, and then fiddled around on the online depth of field calculator, and found most typical boxes seem to be fixed to a focus of about 15-20 feet. This provides sharp focus from about 10 feet to about 50 or so feet. Which would have been very useful for the sort of things people with box cameras probably usually took photos of (group photos, or things like houses and small scenes). As most people simply got contact prints at the time, it was sharp enough for landscapes too. Instructions for indoors photos had people stop the lens down and do a long exposure, this had the effect of increasing the near focus to about eight feet or so, so seated portraits could have been possible indoors (or outdoors in deep shade).

 

[seany65]

@tunaegs, thanks for the extra info and the new camera suggestion.

Some of the simpler 126 cameras, such as the kodak 177x) had fixed focus, 1 speed and 2 apertures. They were basically small box cameras. If more 126 cameras had been like the rollei 126 or ricoh 126 (prolly not quite the right names) ie. like 'proper' cameras but with easier film loading, then maybe 126 wouldn't have died out.

@wjj3. That brownie flash iv is quite pretty, but I think it's even simpler than the brownie model 2 f, so I wonder why they'd do that given the rise of more complicated cameras.