Goldy
Whenever I see a French word ending in “…if”, it gives me a flashback to my first visit to Paris. I made the rookie mistake of consuming too many baguettes and too much fromage. A visit to the pharmacy isn’t quite as easy as it is at home. The ability to speak French would’ve […]
SEM Baby
I like to think I don’t have a “type”. I like colorful, little plastic cameras that make snapping noises. I like tin and Bakelite 127s. I do have some nice cameras – cameras that are too good for me. These are mostly gifts from people who never in a million years would have given me grampa’s […]
Bencini Comet
The guy at the Mini Flea Market in Brighton, England asked me, “Why did you choose that particular one?” The question surprised me and I halted for a moment. “What drew you to it?” he asked. As I’d sifted through his boxes of junk cameras, I kept in mind I only had just so much […]
Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2
Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2 folding camera: My friends, Rosann and Bill, surprised me with this little beauty. A change of their home decor caused them to pass it on. The side struts are crazily elegant. I was just about to head out on another WORLD PEACE THROUGH JUNK STORE CAMERAS trip across the northern plains […]
Cub
I can’t believe I just spent 45 minutes trying to fix the shutter in this thing. Finally …You know what? Fuck it. I soaked it in lighter fluid and, if it isn’t working tomorrow, I’ll stick it open and use a piece of tape for a shutter. At least this experience has prompted me to reload […]
Hollywood Reflex
They say Hollywood is a tough town to get a break in … and this is one tough camera. A cast metal twin-lens reflex “style” (meaning, not the real thing) camera. Manufactured in 1947 … well, what do you know? I just happen to have a roll of 620 film that expired in May of ’47! […]
Perfex Fifty-Five
A Perfex to ponder: This camera sat on the shelf of a junk store near here for months! They wanted six bucks for it. Six bucks is well within my camera-buying budget, but what the heck was I ever going to do with a camera in THIS condition? It sat there for so long…I […]
Agfa Isolette
A friend’s dad died and I ended up with this Agfa, a Kodak Retina, a Brownie, some Polaroid gear (hey! did the earth shake just then?) and some movie camera stuff. The Isolette is your typical pop out camera. You press a little button and out pops the bellows. You can focus it, you can […]
Agfa Chief
Agfa Chief: This camera looks a lot like an Ansco Pioneer, only bigger. It’s got a metal body with a round chunk of Bakelite sporting a glass lens. The little red shutter button can be set for “i” and “b”. What’s interesting about this camera is the lens rotates for near and far. “N” and […]
Univex Uniflash
Made in the USA by Universal Camera Corp, this little bakelite camera accepts those special Univex #00 film rolls. I used 828 size film and just kind of jammed it into the battery compartment. I kept having to open it in the dark bag to advance the roll, but it worked. The camera has simple […]
Kodak Duex
The 27 page (!) instruction booklet says the camera accepts 620 film. I trimmed down a 120 spool and got 16 images per roll. Very Kodak Bullet-like, in that it has a helical-telescoping front. (Them’s fancy words for – the front screws out.) If you forget to unscrew the lens to make it pop out, […]
Monroe Sales Color-Flex Camera
EBay has a section within the Photo category called “Wholesale Lots”. There’s some really weird stuff there. There’s also mis-placed, mis-labeled and mis-described items for sale there. One day I came upon a pile of cameras that’d been mis-everything-ed. Misspelled, even. These misfits succumbed to my bid of about fifteen bucks. A few days before the package arrived […]
Agfa A-8 Cadet Box Camera
The Cadet uses 127 film and is smaller than your average box. It fits nicely into one of the smaller size Crown Royal felt bags.* I recently took the Cadet on a snowshoe trip that didn’t pan out. But it was a great time in the rainy North Cascades nevertheless and I took the waterfall and […]