Affordable ( Cheap ) MF 6x6 120 Film Camera ( w/Flash ) Mid 1960's

[wjlapier]

I'm scanning some old negatives for my wife's mother and camera across some photos of their marriage in 1967. My wife thinks it was her grandmother who had the camera but we don't know anything about the camera used since she's been dead for quite some time. What would have been an affordable 120 6x6 film camera that could shoot flash and was relatively easy to use. Many photos I've scanned already are indoor and are obviously flashed. Most images are in focus and OK exposure. Amazingly, colors still look great after all these years. I'm curious about the camera used.

 

[markjwyatt]

I would guess it was a folder of some type. Lot of folding cam,eras produced in the 1930s-1950s would still be good in the 1960s easily, and produced great images. Frankas were pretty common in the 1950s still in the USA. I am shooting a 1938+/-1 Ihagee folder, plus I have a Franks Rolfix II (bellows leaks). Franka made 6x6 folders also.

 

[Donald Qualls]

If you consider 620 = 120, it's very probable the camera in question was either a Brownie Hawkeye Flash or one of the four Kodak Duaflex models. Both had flash connections, and aside from the first Duaflex, used the same flash attachments. They made good quality images from about 5 feet out, and the flash was correct exposure (in 80-100 speed film) from five to 15 feet. And there were a LOT of them around.

Load the camera, frame in the bright finder, make sure you have a fresh bulb, and push the button. Done, wind on (to unlock the shutter release, at least in a later Duaflex), change the bulb, ready to go again. The first camera I ever handled was a Duaflex II, and the first one I owned was a Brownie Hawkeye Flash.

 

[markjwyatt]

If you consider 620 = 120, it's very probable the camera in question was either a Brownie Hawkeye Flash or one of the four Kodak Duaflex models. Both had flash connections, and aside from the first Duaflex, used the same flash attachments. They made good quality images from about 5 feet out, and the flash was correct exposure (in 80-100 speed film) from five to 15 feet. And there were a LOT of them around.

Load the camera, frame in the bright finder, make sure you have a fresh bulb, and push the button. Done, wind on (to unlock the shutter release, at least in a later Duaflex), change the bulb, ready to go again. The first camera I ever handled was a Duaflex II, and the first one I owned was a Brownie Hawkeye Flash.

You may be right. I was thinking more in terms of the "look great" aspect. A decent folder would produce better images than most of the box cameras, but are not as easy to use.

 

[Donald Qualls]

For the common contact prints offered through the mid-1960s, or even up to the 4x4 enlargements that were common in the mid 1970s, either a Brownie Hawkeye Flash or a fixed-focus, fixed-exposure Duaflex (as opposed to the one with aperture and focus control -- too many moving parts for the average user) was plenty good enough in image quality for "looks great" and virtually foolproof (the Duaflex III and IV had double exposure protection, even).

And, of course, the bad prints (motion blur, flash didn't fire, thumb in front of the lens) wouldn't have been kept for 50+ years.

 

[MattKing]

Kodak Brownie Twin 20:
https://www.brownie-camera.com/48.shtml

 

[Paul Howell]

Bell and Howell marketed a variety of 6X6 consumer grade cameras, simple box, twin lens flex with fixed lens, as did ANSCO, maybe a Kodak Reflex II, made in the late 40s to early 50s, had a pretty good 4 element lens, strange gear focusing, a gear on the view lens focuses the taking lens. Kowa, Rioch, Yashica also made entry level TLRs. I'm printing my older negatives, started in the 65, the older process, C22 has held up better than some of negatives taken the 70s after C41 became the norm.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Bottom line, for a 6x6 used at a wedding in 1967, too many choices. You can narrow it down some; you should be able to tell from the orientation of images on the negatives whether the film transport was side to side, or bottom to top -- side to side is a folder or a "coffee can" Ikoflex (or a copy), or one like the photo above or a close relative of it (I'm not certain that isn't a 127, though).. Bottom to top is every TLR ever except an Ikoflex (clone), along with Brownie Hawkeye Flash and probably some other 6x6 box cameras.

 

[wjlapier]

I’m away from the desk until Friday. I’ll check the orientation of some negative. Many are two together and many are single images. No three in a row.
There are some 127, 126, 110, and 35mm. And the 616 I mentioned above.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Even on the singles, you should be able to see edge markings and/or tell which edges are cut after processing vs. the original film edge.

Doesn't narrow it down much, though, for 120/620.

616 was Kodak only, as far as I know. 127 had almost as much variety as 120/620 -- vertical transport TLRs and pseudo-TLRs, horizontal transport box style cameras, and a bunch of eye level snapshooters in the 1950s, as well as full frame (4x6 cm) and half frame (3x4 cm) strut and bed folders going as far back as WWI.

 

[MattKing]

616 was Kodak only, as far as I know.

Yes, but 116 was the same size, save and except for the spools.

 

[Donald Qualls]

True. I'm surprised Kodak didn't try the same trick with 127.

Well, they kind of did. 828 was virtually the same frame as half-frame 127, but fit in a smaller camera...

 

[mgb74]

There were a few 120 TLRs build in the 50s that could easily have been usable in the 60s. Here's one that I own.

 

[wjlapier]

I finally had a chance to look a the negatives. First off, the only marking on them and many others is "Kodak Safety Film", and the frame number. The orientation is top to bottom.

A couple photos my wife has never seen. 1968.

 

[itsdoable]

Can you show the rebate? Whole file, including the space between frames.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Okay, the softness of the flash shadows suggests a 6" bowl reflector such as usually used M3 bulbs or the older, larger #5. AG-1 typically had a 2-3" diameter reflector. Reflector is at or slightly above lens height, very common for almost everything that would shoot 6x6 with vertical film transport in those days. Focus runs mostly behind the subjects and gets lost pretty quickly in front, suggesting hyperfocal; there is also pincushion and coma in the corners, implying a relatively simple lens, likely a meniscus, and a fairly wide angle, also a common feature of fixed-everything cameras. I don't see anything here that would suggest a more sophisticated camera than a Duaflex or Brownie Hawkeye with flash unit mounted. Between the various camera models Kodak offered between, say, 1950 and 1965, there were literally millions of cameras in the hands of American families by the late 1960s that would produce images virtually indistinguishable from these, most very affordable (many had plastic bodies, and by 1960, plastic lenses as well).

Those negatives were almost certainly Kodacolor X, the standard consumer color film (at least in America) from the introduction of the C-22 process until C-41 took over.

 

[wjlapier]

Great info there Donald Qualls. I appreciate the time taken to explain and offer ideas on what camera it might have been. It's possible that after the grandmother passed away that the camera ( assuming it was her's ) went to one of my wife's aunts, or someone else other than her mom.

The space between the frames. If the rebate is the vertical sides, that area is hidden by the film holder on my scanner.

 

[wjlapier]

I just remembered. I found a new sealed box of film in an envelope but assumed it was 120. I checked again and it's 620 Triple Print Color Film vintage Mar 1970. It was a gift from Famous Brands. The date on that envelope is Jan 24, '69. So, I'm assuming these negatives might be 620 and Triple Print brand.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Triple Print was a mail-in processing house (there were several of these -- my mother used to call their product "funny film" because you couldn't get it processed locally); their big gimmick was to provide 6", 4", and 3" prints all on a single sheet from each frame on every roll, plus send back a roll of film ("free" as in priced in with the processing) to keep you returning to them. Their film boxes claimed Triple Print film could only be processed at Triple Print, but there were only two common color negative processes (in the USA) prior to 1980 or so when C-41 came along -- C-22 for Kodacolor X, and an Agfa/GAF process for Agfacolor -- so it had to be one of those. If your negatives were marked "Kodak Safety Film" in the rebate (along the film edge, where your scanner can't reach), they probably weren't Triple Print; I don't think Kodak was selling their stock in bulk for rebranding before 1970.

The 620 assumption is probably better, however -- by 1960, most of the simple consumer cameras in use in the USA were Kodak, and all of those made after WWII (and a good portion from the 1920s and 1930s) were clearly marked "Use only Kodak 620 film." Some also stated "120 film will not fit this camera!" There was a period, from the mid-1960s through the 1970s, when there was a tacit assumption that 620 film was for "family" consumers, while 120 was more "professional" -- despite the very same stocks being offered on both spools by every manufacturer who knew which side of his bread was buttered, including Kodak.

 

[btaylor]

I think I tried the “Triple Print” gambit in ‘67 or ‘68. I had my new Instamatic 126 camera and I was very excited to photograph a train trip up the Feather River on the California Zephyr. I remember the color was awful and a great disappointment. I recently came upon those same photos cleaning out my dad’s house after he passed, and I can honestly say they are some of the worst color prints I have ever seen. Got 3 of every shot though! They were also slightly out of focus (the printing, not the camera).

 

[Donald Qualls]

I can honestly say they are some of the worst color prints I have ever seen. Got 3 of every shot though! They were also slightly out of focus (the printing, not the camera).

And free film back!