Brownies!

S

Sanders McNew

Rolleiflex User
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Joined
May 31, 2007
Messages
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I am scratching my head and wondering
why no one here has thought to create a
forum for Kodak Brownies -- the grand-
daddy of all 120 non-SLR cameras.

Brownies are dirt-cheap and many take
120 or 620 film. I picked up a Brownie
Hawkeye, a 1950 Bakelite confection
that was designed to take 620 film, but
that takes 120 rolls so long as you use
a 620 take-up spool. I cleaned and
inverted the lens (a plastic meniscus)
and have been getting great photographs
with it. Here are a couple of snapshots of
my wife from this past weekend:

2940971481_be47af087e.jpg


2944767018_114b7538e8.jpg


(More online at www.flickr.com/sandersnyc)

I'm not abandoning my Rolleiflexes any
time soon, but the Brownie is a nice
diversion for occasional use.

Any other Brownie shooters out there?

Sanders
 
Last edited:
Hi Sanders,

I've been admiring these on your Flickr Stream and wondering about the pronounced edge blurring. Is this from "inverting" the lens?

Also, I love your portraits and can't seem to go a day without checking your uploads.


Dan
 
Wow those are nice. I have a Brownie Hawkeye, but it seems to have much lower image quality that what I typically see for some reason.
 
DCourter said:
I've been admiring these on your Flickr Stream and wondering about the pronounced edge blurring. Is this from "inverting" the lens?
Click to expand...

Dan, yes. Flipping the lens around does two things.
It shortens the focal length to about five feet (from
8-10 feet) and it distorts the edges of the frame as
you see here. Sanders
 
Timely thread.
I just got home with 2 purchases from Ritz Collectable Cameras in Phoenix.

1 Brownie Bullet
1 Brownie Super 27

So, flipping the lens, you lose infinity. About how close will it focus now?
 
Steve, my Hawkeye seems to focus around 5 feet.
But the aperture is fixed at f/11 so there is some
leeway. And the soft focus for closer images fits
with the distortion. Sanders
 
This is a cool idea, Sanders! I have a Brownie or two laying around here somewhere- I'll try this as soon as I can put my hands on one....
 
Hurrah for Brownies! I found my way to rangefinders and the like via an old Coronet box camera, and some rolls of time-expired 120. Sadly, I don't use them as much as I did because I don't have access to a darkroom any more, but I love the buzz from getting a keeper from something so primitive. Sure, I get a buzz from getting one from an OM10 or an F3 but they were designed to even the odds in your favour. The brownies weren't!

My favourite users are two No 2 Model F box cameras (early 1930s, just pre-620) and a No2 Folding Pocket Brownie dating to about 1911. Here's a pic with it I just happened to have handy on RFF...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=61337&d=1215013497

Much of my ability (or perhaps not much, because there isn't a lot of it!) was honed with eight shots to a roll in a viewfinder the size of a thumbnail...

And do I see a nude in there? No wonder she looks puzzled - "You want me to do what? And you'll take my picture with that?!

Adrian
 
Muggins said:
Hurrah for Brownies! ... My favourite users are two No 2 Model F box cameras (early 1930s, just pre-620)
Click to expand...

Another of my eBay Brownie finds is a variation of the No. 2
Model F, made in the UK: A Portrait Brownie, with a built-in
portrait lens for shortening the focus distance to 3-4 feet.
It is a mess now but once I get it cleaned up, I look forward
to giving it a spin.

Muggins said:
And do I see a nude in there?
Click to expand...

:) I have many nudes in my Flickr stream, but only one
shot with the Brownie:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandersnyc/2909911346/

Here she is shot conventionally with my Tele Rolleiflex:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandersnyc/2914541590/
 
Beautiful wife! And the brownie images are terrific. Great, now you have given me Brownie Gas (which kinda sound disgusting). I love the softness on the edges with the flipped lens.
 
Since I seem to have ended up with a couple, I will "flip" one and see what happens. Thanks for the 120/620 tip--saves a lot of rewinding. So, to be clear---the lens trick is to rotate the the lens so the front is the back, yes? Invert would be to rotate it so the top is the new bottom, I think.
 
I started this hobby at the age of 12 with a 127 Brownie from a garage sale. Got all my photos processed mail order at York Photo.
 
Can anyone confirm or deny the story I heard a long time ago that Bronica was based on 'Brownie-ca'?
Click to expand...
The story I head is that the cameras were named after the company's founder, Zenzaburo Yoshino, so Zenza Bronica = "Zena Bro's camera", or something like that.
 
David Graves said:
Since I seem to have ended up with a couple, I will "flip" one and see what happens. Thanks for the 120/620 tip--saves a lot of rewinding. So, to be clear---the lens trick is to rotate the the lens so the front is the back, yes? Invert would be to rotate it so the top is the new bottom, I think.
Click to expand...

David, yes. The lens is one piece, behind
the shutter, concave on one side, and convex
on the other. The "correct" orientation is for
the concave side to be facing outward. You
want to flip it so the convex side is facing
outward. Sanders
 
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