Ensign Selfix 820

Got back from holiday and had a look at the Ensign. Its a 42mm push on filter - I got one of those old push on lens hoods so I'm off! I also thought I'd be brave and clean the shutter and lubricate it as it worked hit and miss on speeds below 1/25. It works great now - it's also a dead simple shutter, not at all like a compur/copal. The lens looks great, the body opens/closes well and all seems mechanically OK - I can't wait to give it a go!. I'm not overly keen on the viewfinder though - the sides are pretty spot on going by the white lines, but top and bottom are miles off with the finder showing much too little of the neg area. If I can handle this and a fixed taking lens and being a bit careful with focusing settings and DOF I reckon I'll be using it a lot - plus it feels and looks like a proper camera!

Dan Fromm said:

my Selfix 820 with 105/3.8 Ross Xpres in Epsilon produces negatives that are 57 mm x 78 mm.

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Just measured my negatives, and they are 56 x 82mm (81.5 to be precise). Odd variation.
The negatives are very pleasant, so much so that I’m keeping mine for the moment. I don’t like the handling, but do like the rendering.
Probably selling a Super Ikonta IV instead. One thing I do find difficult is keeping it still when releasing the shutter. A monopod seems necessary to me at least.

This thread is almost sixteen years old, but I found it through Google and others may find it too, so it's not too late to add information:

Donald Qualls said:

Interesting. Those numbers were assigned sequentially, which implies 117 predates 120, and that 6x6 predates 6x9 in roll film (though the first few were retroactively applied to existing formats when the 100 series numbering was started not long before 1900). Interesting because NONE of the earliest German TLRs had a center window -- the Brilliant had a starter window on the 6x9 track, the Rolleiflex (of course) had the automatic counter start, and there were a couple models with the three-window system on the 6x9 track. Perhaps this is just because they were made to use the Agfa B2 film, which was identical to 120 (including having only a 6x9 track in the earliest days, though B2 apparently had 6x6 by the time my Speedex Jr. was made, around 1948).

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The Original Rolleiflex from 1929 used B1/117-film and had a center window and no mechanical counter. The early Rolleiflex Standard from 1932 had two starter windows, a center one for "B1 Film 6x6" and one on the bottom for "B2 Film 6x9". The window for B1 was dropped after a year or two. The mechanism to start the counter automatically was introduced with the Rolleiflex Automat in 1937.

The 117 spool was like a 120 spool with a 620 flange, with film for taking six 6x6 pictures. When cameras got mechanical counters and 120-fim got the frame numbers for 6x6 on the backing paper the manufacturers stopped making cameras for 117, and this film disappeared from the shelves around 1950.

I have 2 of these cameras. for me they are very nice cameras, nice lenses and no problems with the shutters. have a look at https://www.120folder.com/ensign_820.htm. the push-on filters and hoods show up from time to time on ebay. 56x82mm seems to me quite common as "6x9". both of my cameras have hinged reducers to 56x56mm, "6x6",