Brownies - Toy or not?

[Jerevan]

I modify the series box cameras to take 120. I shoot both round and 6X11 format.

Cool photos! How do you modify the cameras - other lenses or more complicated stuff?

 

[greyhoundman]

I use thin cardboard (cereal box) to make the new film guides in the back. Just glue them over the old ones. I use the original lenses. On one I modified the shutter to get 1/50 second speed. The other I left at the base 1/30 second. The round photos were done with a mask added in the back.
A 116 box camera will give 6 -6X11 photos on 120. I moved the red window to the center of the back and used the middle row of numbers. You only use the odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9,11.
I have the pics of the mods on my blog, and I will be posting a Kodak 3 modified camera today.

 

[Russ Young]

Greyhoundman-
Thanks for the tips. Will covert a otherwise useless 116 this weekend! Might try an elliptical mask.
I REALLY enjoyed your flickr site.... there's a warmth and sensitivity to the natural world that seems few people possess anymore. Hey, your house was better than mine- I was raised in a log cabin built in 1814 by my grandad's ancestors...

Russ

 

[Akki14]

Hm I suppose Brownies is a very wide ranging term, but that still makes me sad that something like my No. 2 Model E which took this picture:

somehow doesn't count because of the camera's name.

Also that picture has totally blown the doors off the rumours that you need slow film in old cameras. That's ISO 400, bulb mode for 3-5 seconds(handheld too! I'm so steady) on an overcast morning, and obviously a fair bit of snow.

 

[DBP]

At 3-5 seconds handheld, I'm not sure a Nikon would have done much better.

 

[PatTrent]

What I like about my Brownie Hawkeyes is specifically that it does not have the aura of a toy camera: no exotic third world manufacturing in a crappy factory, no light leaks, no magical randomness, in other words, NO IRONY. I like it for what it is. I'm not even mocking secretly the manufacturer.

It gives me beautifully soft and color-aberratted (what's the opposite of color-corrected?) results on slide film, the kind that arrests the eye because it's not common anymore. It frees me from the Tyranny of Correct Exposure just like a Holga but did so for chump change, and I can use flashbulbs with it.

It's a classic design, it works as a self-defense tool, has a waist-level finder for that classic Brownie Pose, or for carrying it at waist level in my lowered hand, aimed and operated from a glance into the viewfinder.

And it has a handle! How many cameras have an integrated handle beside box cameras? Polaroid cameras, and that's about it.

A salute to the Brownie Hawkeye--my very first camera. I STILL have photos I took with it as a child. I certainly did not think of it as a toy when I owned one, but neither would I exclude anyone using one from membership in the Toy Camera Club.

Pat

 

[Akki14]

At 3-5 seconds handheld, I'm not sure a Nikon would have done much better.

I think it'd look a lot more sharp with my Nikon actually. There's not much "jiggle" as i were if you look at the car taillights and such.

 

[Sirius Glass]

A salute to the Brownie Hawkeye--my very first camera. I STILL have photos I took with it as a child. I certainly did not think of it as a toy when I owned one, but neither would I exclude anyone using one from membership in the Toy Camera Club.

Pat

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