Brownie and bikes

Good evening gentle persons! Hope you holiday weekend is going well.

I am planning on going on a two day bike camping event this fall, and the camera I would like to use is my brownie hawkeye flash. Why? Because I want to try something different. And because I'm like that.

My questions are: 1) since my shutter speed is about 1/30, and my fstop is 15ish, do I want to run a film that is closer to my shutter speed, ie 50 or less, in order to get the best chance of minimal blur?

2) I plan on taking some evening and morning shots with this and its original working flash. Would 100iso be fast enough to use with the flash, or go faster with 200 and no flash? I know that 400 is way too fast for this camera. Even with a tripod, I had trouble with some blurring in my pictures.

Being on a bicycle, I will not have enough time to set up a "proper" camera, and I usually use vintage. My goal is to use a point and shoot using film speed to compensate for the camera's shortcomings. Plus I don't have to take 24 pictures to switch film speeds. If they still made 12 exposure 35mm...

Your thoughts, please?

Thank you in advance.
Eric

I have more questions than answers:

Will you be using flash bulbs?
If so, are you familiar with Guide Numbers for exposure, relative to distance and film speed?
Are you using 120 film respooled onto 620 spools?
Do you have a supply of 620 take-up spools?
...or are you using 35mm film and 3D-printed adapters? If so, do you have a changing bag?

I admire your spirit of adventure....but if you will be 'winging it', a Holga with a built-in flash might be a better choice.

I have the same camera and oddly enough, have used mine on bike rides and camping trips (but not bike trips).

I mainly use Kodak Gold 200. It has enough latitude to work in a variety of lighting situations with or without flash. I've even managed some early morning sunrise pictures, though the foreground is underexposed in the machine prints I received. I only use the flash for indoor shots or shots in near darkness (where you'd likely use a flash with any camera). You might run into problems mid day with bright sun, but for morning or evening shots or times when the sun isn't as bright (cloudy, under a tree canopy, etc), it should be fine.

@AnselMortensen The Brownie Flash, at least mine, seems to work fine with the film on a 120 supply spool as long as you're spooling onto a 620 take-up spool as you shoot.

Chris

Mild overexposure will be well within film latitude; I'd go with ISO 100-125 film, and take along a roll or two of 400 in case of a dull day. A couple stops of neutral density filter adapted to fit over the lens ring would mean 400 will do everything.

Best check ahead on supply spools -- some Brownie Hawkeye Flash will feed from unaltered 120, some will feed from 120 with the flange trimmed flush with the roll surface, and some genuinely require you respool onto 620 spools. AFAIK, that's the progression from oldest to newest.

I lent out my Canadian manufactured Brownie Hawkeye Flash camera to a friend at our Darkroom Group meeting on the weekend.
The date code on mine indicates 1954 manufacture, using the "Camerosity" cryptogram key .
So about midway through the run, if the production mirrored the dates for the US run.
I can feed 120 film in it, but it is a bit hard to wind.

Donald Qualls said:

Mild overexposure will be well within film latitude; I'd go with ISO 100-125 film, and take along a roll or two of 400 in case of a dull day. A couple stops of neutral density filter adapted to fit over the lens ring would mean 400 will do everything.

Best check ahead on supply spools -- some Brownie Hawkeye Flash will feed from unaltered 120, some will feed from 120 with the flange trimmed flush with the roll surface, and some genuinely require you respool onto 620 spools. AFAIK, that's the progression from oldest to newest.

Click to expand...

I agree with Donald on ISO. I shoot with 4 Hawkeye Brownies and the shutters are all around 1/50. ISO 200 is good on a sunny day, 400 good on dull days. You need 620 spools for the take-up, so you need one for each roll you bring with you. I have removed the metal flange thing on the supply side just by snapping it off. If you don't the film may fit but tends to bind up on you halfway through. Watch the latch, it easily changes position in bags and backpacks.

All that said, I've owned three of these -- my first, fifty-some years ago, produced some of my favorite images from my grade school days, including some you wouldn't expect such a simple camera to be capable of (hand-braced time exposures, for instance). The two I have now are just as good as that original one was; the lens is far better than a meniscus singlet has a right to be (both the original glass version and the later plastic one), and it's simple to operate and as robust as a Bakelite body is likely to get. Drop it on a hard surface and it will crack or break, but in normal handling, it'll be fine.

Good evening fellas!
Thank you for your replies. You are much appreciated.
@AnselMortensen,
I will be using flash bulbs if I need too. Hoping to not need to, but...
yessir, I am familiar with the guide.
Using 120 re-rolled to 620? Yes, and some 620 I purchased from FPP as my camera shop is currently out of what I want.
Yes, I have plenty of 620 spools. Some from back when Kodak still made it.
No offense to Holgas, but they are not my cup of tea. I know they are capable of good pictures, I'm just not a fan.

@mtnbkr, I plan on taking some pictures while I am riding, and the group is leaving around 0800, I believe. We are then riding on a "rails-to-trails" until we get to the lake campground. So I will have some pictures from all times of the day. I was/am mostly worried about getting really blurry shots while I am riding. The rest will be relatively not too difficult, I think. I have seen some really good semi-action (not high speed) shots with a brownie. But there was no reference to what film they used, nor was I able to contact the author.

@Donald Qualls, The 125-100 iso and lower films are what I had in mind. My brownie is an earlier flash model, as it has the metal winding knob. I did try to put a 120 spool of film (my much used sacrificial roll) in, but the spool fit so tightly, that I feared I would tear it (it wrinkled the edges of the backing paper, it pulled so hard). I plan on using 620 re-rolled, and some pre-re-rolled film. I have plenty of take-up spools.

@Saganich, Thank you for your info. I bent my latch just a bit to make it fit tighter. Thus far, I have not had any problems with it coming open. I had not considered trimming the 120 spools, I just re-rolled them onto 620 spools. I may try that in the future, it would definitely be faster to do that.

@MattKing, Where are the date codes? I would be interested in possibly dating my two brownies. Could you provide me a picture, please?

And for my last(?) Question, I read twice that 400 speed film would work in this camera if it is cloudy or darker. I have tried 400 film twice in this camera, both times under cloudy skies under a tree canopy. Even leaning up against a tree, and ever so gently pressing the shutter release, I got some blurryness. The camera has been cleaned and rebuilt, and I am fairly (ha!) steady, so I just figured that film was too fast for the camera. I am open to improvement suggustions.

Thank you guys much for your help and insight!

Eric

Eric the Red said:

@mtnbkr, I plan on taking some pictures while I am riding, and the group is leaving around 0800, I believe. We are then riding on a "rails-to-trails" until we get to the lake campground. So I will have some pictures from all times of the day. I was/am mostly worried about getting really blurry shots while I am riding. The rest will be relatively not too difficult, I think. I have seen some really good semi-action (not high speed) shots with a brownie. But there was no reference to what film they used, nor was I able to contact the author.

And for my last(?) Question, I read twice that 400 speed film would work in this camera if it is cloudy or darker. I have tried 400 film twice in this camera, both times under cloudy skies under a tree canopy. Even leaning up against a tree, and ever so gently pressing the shutter release, I got some blurryness. The camera has been cleaned and rebuilt, and I am fairly (ha!) steady, so I just figured that film was too fast for the camera. I am open to improvement suggustions.

Thank you guys much for your help and insight!

Eric

Click to expand...

You're taking pictures WHILE you ride? You do know there's only one shutter speed on this camera and it is slow. Changing film speeds will not compensate for movement in the subject or the photographer.

If you're getting blurry pictures, then you're introducing some movement into the camera. That's easy to do given the very long shutter release travel.

Chris

Best of luck, safe travels, and please post pics when you get back.

Eric the Red said:

I have tried 400 film twice in this camera, both times under cloudy skies under a tree canopy. Even leaning up against a tree, and ever so gently pressing the shutter release, I got some blurryness. The camera has been cleaned and rebuilt, and I am fairly (ha!) steady, so I just figured that film was too fast for the camera.

Click to expand...

That's not how it works. A slow shutter in the camera will cause blur if the camera moves during exposure, regardless what film is loaded. 400 speed vs. 100 just means the film will get enough light during the shutter opening when the light level is 1/4 what it would have been. A dull day and shade might be too dim for 400, even, but either one or the other is about right for 400 in a Brownie Hawkeye Flash.

I had planned on stopping along the ride to take pictures as people rode by. And yes, I had planned on taking pictures of other riders ahead of me as I rode matching speed. Hoping even speeds would give a blur of the surrounding scenery and pedalling feet, but leave people and bikes mostly intact. I will instead be taking my Minolta AF-2. It has everything I will need.
Thank you all for your kind words of wisdom.

Eric

Bravo for wanting to go minimalist. But I think that limiting yourself to a box camera will be a big mistake. Being on a bicycle you will be "up close and personal" to a lot of sights you might not consider NOW. What if there's something back in the woods of interest? You'd not be able to shoot it at all, as it would be too severly underexposed. Or what if you find the picture of your lifetime, with perfect lighting and you shoot it.?Then go to the printing stage and find out it isn't sharp because its outside the 6 to 15 foot "sweet spot". You're setting yourself for disappointment.