Today's purchase ($10) was that bakelite beauty, the Kodak Brownie 127. The 127 refers to the type of film these cameras take, which I believe Kodak stopped producing in 1995. Thankfully, I'm lead to believe some Eastern European film manufacturers still make the stuff (how I will navigate online ordering in any language other than English is another matter), and if you're keen (but not keen enough to buy 127 film & then argue with your local camera chain about developing it) you can slot in some 135.
I'm not a huge fan of "toy" cameras. I do own both a Fisheye 2 and a Holga, however with me the novelty wears off eventually. The Holga has had about 6 films through it in my 7 years of owning it, and the Fisheye is still nursing a roll of expired film that I started at Christmas. So I guess it's more a using them thing. I like the look of the Brownie 127, it reminds me of a radio (c. 1950s) I once saw at the family shack. So it's worth the relatively small outlay for that alone.
WHilst in the shop that lead to the purchase of the Brownie, I took a squizz at a pair of folding cameras they also had for sale. One was a Penguin (? never heard of it until today), the other was a something I had heard of (UK brand?), but can't for the life of me remember now. Both were in pretty poor condition. The second seemed to be functioning okay, but $50 for something that is more rust that camera is a bit much.
--
Yesterday I was so close to buying a Moskva 5, but in the end decided that I still haven't seen results from the Contaflex & Isolette, and only one roll from the Zorki - so perhaps it wasn't a wise idea to compound this by adding another camera to the pool. What I did decide is that a light meter would drastically increase the chances of getting good results (or at least well exposed) from those cameras. So, thanks to confdntart, I have a Leningrad 4 light meter on the way.
--
Oh, and I ordered some Svema 64 film as well, expired in 2004. I figured it would be good to get into the spirit of Red Oktober by shooting film from a former Soviet Union manufacturer, in a camera made in the USSR.
No comments:
Post a Comment