Kodak Brownie 127 Camera

This one doesn't stand out all that much. Fact is, I bought it because of its cute case. Then I shot one roll with it out of courtesy, sold the camera and held onto the case. It now serves as my jewelery case. You can call me weird.

This Brownie from around the 1952 (first version out of three) is as simple as it gets: all plastic, one shutter speed, meniscus lens (f/14 64mm) a viewfinder and a winding crank. It uses 127 film and takes 6x4 cm photos. There is nothing spectacular about it. Really. Image quality leaves much to be desired if you consider the vignetting, blurriness and general lens distortion as drawbacks. And still, they sold in millions.

I used a colour UCN 200 Maco film and developed it in b&w chemistry. Only two images were salvageable.

You can find more history on the Kodak Brownie 127 Camerapedia page.

Gnome Pixie!

The Gnome. The Pixie. He's here. Hush, don't scare him off!

Well, actually, the Pixie is a heavy all-metal box, I don't picture him wimping out. I imagine he'd rather headbutt someone and knock them unconscious, mischievous little thing.

So he's a boxy box. Almost cubical, black and chrome, very elegant. Quite heavy, unexpectedly. I read that there were several variations of the Gnome. Mine seems to be an early example although I'm not sure. There is no leatherette covering, just rough black enamel which would point to early production but no chrome edges suggest otherwise. No matter, such detail is for the geekiest of geeks. For the record, the Pixie was in production around 1950 in Great Britain and that's where he came from to me, in a truly beautiful condition, as you can see for yourselves.

It's a simple camera. Flip up viewfinder. Two shutter settings: I and B. And that's that. It takes 620 film and sadly won't accept 120 so some respooling is bound to happen. The shutter release lever is really hard to move and the instant time is around 1/30, as usual, so I'll have to use a tripod when I intend to shoot. And I do.

Panda girl!

I had a small photoshoot with a nice girl a week ago. She got inspired with my camera collection and we decided to create something fun using those old things. We chose the Panda because it's just so adorable -- the red shutter lever makes it just perfect! So here goes, a fun photo for your pleasure, made out of enjoyment!

I admit I did a lot of meddling with the curves and levels and stuff to achieve this crossed look. I don't usually do that but this photo simply asked for something teenage-ish and crazy. Just for the record: this photo was taken with a Canon 50D and Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8.

Unomat C300

My first camera was this very plastic point&shoot Unomat C300. It was given to me by my mother who had been taking photos for ages and probably wanted me to know that art myself. I didn't stick to it back then, probably because I was only 12 years old, the camera looked cheap and ugly and my photos were so much worse than those taken by my mother using Canons with a range of spectacular FD-mount lenses.


I still have that Unomat and learned to love it in a special way. Sure, it's a stupid camera with bad, plastic 30mm lens, it looks gross and most of the pictures turn out yucky. But it's got a charm of its own because it allows for so much freedom. It lets me reset my mind to a state when I really don't need to work on the photos that I take. It's even more liberating than medium format box cameras because there are just so many frames to fill on a 135 format film. It uses one standard shutter speed, probably around 1/100, has a built-in flash that works if you put 2 AA batteries in the camera, which I don't do. The aperture must be around 11 or 16 so it's best to use higher ASA film and shoot outside or at least in well-lit areas. No thinking is required to run this machine.

The Unomat usually sits on my camera shelf, in line with other not-too-spiffy point-and-shoots. I sometimes use it when I intend to shoot slides and cross them. It's quite lomo-esque in a good way. I hear that it's a nice alternative for the popular Vivitar Ultra Wide&Slim (and those started to be rather expensive after lomography moved in), but I think that's a bit far-fetched. I know UW&S to be a good performer whereas the Unomat lacks a lot when it comes to sharpness: it's kinda nowhere to be found. But, as has been already stated, it's a lomo-esque camera and sharpness is a whim of the modern, digitalized world.

I took one thoroughly cool photo with the Unomat -- the first below. The rest is just fun enough to show.

Purma Special

I remember reading about Purma Special on camerapedia. It was a featured article showing on the front page for half a year or something so one day I just started reading about this unpretty bakelite contraption guided by gravity. And that's when it happened: I fell in love. The camera simply lost its un-prettiness and became a beautiful work of a skilled and imaginative mind. I've always had deep appreciation for people who know how to create things that others can use. I know I can't. Without those wonderful minds -- no taking photos for me!

If you're interested in the technicalities, you can read enough in this article from Living Image Camera Museum and I won't have to tell the same story. In short, the camera has three shutter speeds: slow (1/25), medium (1/125) and fast (1/450) that depend on the way you hold the camera. It takes sixteen 3x3 photos on 127 film that is currently produced by Maco/Rollei in a small variety. It's a British camera from the 1930s.

When my own Purma arrived, only the "Fast" speed was working but I was so excited that I put a roll in it immediately anyway and shot it all at once. Then I spent an hour or two on making the other two shutter speeds working and they do for now. There is another roll inside now and as I was taking photos I learned that when I use the slow shutter speed my finger tends to go in the way of the shutter cocking lever which makes the shutter stop before it finishes traveling across the film gate. Some overexposure is bound to show, I presume. Other than that, the Beck Anastigmat 6.3/50mm lens is nice and sharp if you don't try anything closer than 2 meters. The 1/450 speed is a wonderful feature, allowing me to take silly photos my boyfriend jumping... only a bit too fast for 100 ASA film even in bright light. Too bad no one wants to make a simple decision of producing 400 ASA film in 127 format.













Purma has a brilliant Purma Guide that I advise you to pay attention to, especially to the introduction and illustrations. Camera manuals usually have photos or drawings of photo-like quality that show you how to use the camera but this one... it's got a soul of its own.

Daci Royal developed

A while ago I wrote about a red Daci Royal that I'd just gotten. Yesterday evening, I developed the film put inside on the day the camera had arrived.

In some of the photos you can see motion blur: those are the ones I took without a tripod. The shutter release button is pretty hard to press and the camera is easy to shake in the process, especially that the instant time is around 1/30s. I wonder if everyone in the fifties (when Daci was released) carried a tripod with themselves when they wanted to shoot a clean photo with Daci? Probably not. But well, there's always a tree stump or a wall you can put the camera on.

I've found some other interesting quirks of this camera. In the photo of the hairy girl (that's me, hi!), there is a truly beautiful light leak that didn't happen anywhere else on the roll. Then there's something weird about the shape of the photos. If you look closely at the bottom of the second photo, you will find an arched black area. This happened in all the photos, probably due to misalignment of the film plane with the back of the camera. I cropped that area in other shots.

Focusing of the lens has little to do with where the sharpness happens to show in the photo. The last shot, for example, was taken with the lens set to 10 meters. You can believe me or not, but this is the balcony of my block of flats' first floor and hence, not more than 5 m. The distance for portraits was precisely measured with a rangefinder camera and the lens set accordingly. I can't see much sharpness anywhere in the photos. Still, sharpness is overrated so if you have a Daci, take it for a walk and have fun. It takes terrible photos but it's very cute. You might make new friends.

I got lucky and found another red Daci right after the first one. I'm going to swap it for something equally fun (I hope!) with Jamie of InspiredPhotos. So I'm currently waiting for the Daci, a Bessa E Messer and a Purma Special. So much excitement! But those will be last cameras bought this year and that's that.

Currently loaded with film are Agfa Ansco Cadet D6 box and Kodak Tourist folder so you can soon expect a few words on those.

Ising Pucky I

Pucky I is definitely one of the best toy cameras in my collection. Then again, I'm not sure if I should really call it a toy camera, as I'm not too fond of this categorization. So what if Pucky wasn't created with all of those levers and function that any self-respecting "serious" camera should have? It looks serious enough to me. Not a toy, by any means! This bulky and heavy pseudo-TLR medium format camera is made of cast metal. It takes 12 square photos on 120 film. It's got a 1:7.7 80mm meniscus lens (Achromat, according to one source) that focuses from 1,5m to infinity. The shutter can be set to Z (Zeit, the same as Bulb) and M (instant, around 1/50). The film has to be wound between consecutive photos, as there is a double exposure prevention mechanism. There is even a PC flash sync (which is compatible with modern flashes) just underneath the lens, so you can use it in the studio! Now isn't that a neat idea for a photoshoot?

Admittedly, I loaded it with a film without having any high hopes. I'd had bad experiences with some other box cameras, such as Baby Box Tengor, and had been slowly giving up on believing that I could get anything decent out of those simple and old contraptions. I was pleasantly surprised when the roll of Delta 100 I took out of the developing tank bore some excitingly good results.













It's a keeper for sure.