Modifying cheap box cameras

George Mann · May 30, 2020

Does anyone have any ideas concerning the modification of cheap (brownie-type) box cameras, particularly the lense quality, and perhaps the shutter speeds?

Has anyone built their own improved version?

AgX · May 30, 2020

Twisting the meniscus lens would induce stronger spherical abberation, and also move the focal distance. But yielding access to the lens might mean opening some crimps and taking off some paper cover.
These cameras aee even less designed for opeing than more advanced models.

narsuitus · May 30, 2020

I know of people who have replaced the lens with a pinhole and facetiously claimed it improved the image quality.

Donald Qualls · May 30, 2020

For some of the cheaper "toy" cameras, a pinhole genuinely would be an improvement over the original lens. Of course, there's the need for a B shutter and tripod bushing...

Donald Qualls · May 30, 2020

George Mann said:
Does anyone have any ideas concerning the modification of cheap (brownie-type) box cameras, particularly the lense quality, and perhaps the shutter speeds?

Has anyone built their own improved version?

I've seen things more or less like this, but they usually weren't modified from a cardboard Ansco Shur-Shot or Kodak Brownie 620 -- there have been many "box" cameras built specifically to use a particular lens with less effort than folding a bellows and building a field camera. Often they're just one box telescoped into another, with some kind of light trap where the two pieces slide; lens hard mounted in the front box, and a spring back off an old dead press camera or similar at the back.

One of the issues with modifying a box camera is that the lens is quite often buried fairly deep inside the "box" that forms the camera's body. In a Shur-Shot Jr. (of which I have one and have shot it recently), the lens (a reverse meniscus, convex toward the film) is about 1/4 of the box length back from the front plate, mounted on the back side of the (wood!) board that forms the main rigid core of the box. To replace it with, say, a 105 mm triplet in shutter, you'd have to remove the original lens entirely, bore out the hole in the central board, mount the shutter with lens into the front plate (and make provision for focusing, if it isn't already a front-cell focus type) -- and set the infinity correctly.

And the main thing you'd gain, in this case, is more versatility in exposure. That single element reverse meniscus was used in simple cameras for almost a century because it worked. Kodak sold them (in the Brownie Hawkeye and probably other models) at least into the 1960s. A pair of such lenses, concave toward each other, properly spaced and with the aperture and shutter halfway between, could do even better at a faster aperture (I have a Speedex Jr. with that kind of lens -- fixed focus, one shutter speed plus B, choice of two aperture stops; you can count bricks in a wall from a block away or further in the images). A hundred and forty years ago, that was called a Rapid Rectilinear -- but in the 1950s, Ansco sold it as a folding box camera.

removed account4 · May 30, 2020

look up "flipped Hawkeye" you will see flipped lenses as mentioned.
not sure how to improve shutter speed seeing its single speed..
personally I have found learning how to use regular old box cameras to be
a wonderful experience. it isn't such a simple camera as you might and if you
learn the right light to shoot in and the best way process and print the film
you can get some images that will rival anything shot with a Leica...

George Mann · May 30, 2020

Which of these box cameras is likely to have the best lense? An Agfa maybe?

I also noticed the the majority of these cameras were made for the now obsolete Kodak film sizes, and not all of them can so easily be converted to 120.

awty · May 30, 2020

With 620 some cameras can easily use 120 film, just need an original feeder spool and trim down the 120 spool.
Different cameras will have different optics, dont thing there is a best.

This is a Argus seventy five with inverted lens.

Trees by Paul Fitz, on Flickr

Donald Qualls · May 30, 2020

I've shot 120 film in every 620 camera I own. It's easier in some than others. I have a couple that require either modifying the camera (removing a supply spool carrier) or respooling onto a 620 spool, but the best one (Kodak Reflex II TLR) happily feeds from a 120 roll with the flanges trimmed down to the backing paper, and will accept the trimmed roll for takeup if the trim is very smooth (620 cameras usually require a 620 takeup spool).

As far as the original lenses in simple cameras, I'd have to call that a tossup. I've never seen one with the reverse meniscus that didn't make good images, if the focus was correct. Good enough to compete with a front-element focusing triplet, in my opinion (except the triplet will likely be between three and five stops faster, and adjustable focus). And yes, they work fine with color film, too.

MattKing · May 30, 2020

Almost all of those cameras gave the user very usable contact prints.
This one is from an unmodified Brownie Hawkeye, and with a bit of darkroom work, prints nicely at 10" x 10":

Donald Qualls · May 31, 2020

And here's one of my favorites, which also prints nicely at reasonable size (I think this was scanned from an 8x8):

Brownie Hawkeye Flash, .EDU Ultra 100, Parodinal 1+49

Worth noting that by the time the Brownie Hawkeye came out, and certainly by the time it was discontinued, modest enlargements had replaced contact prints as the standard method of printing at most small processors (like drug stores).

George Mann · May 31, 2020

Those are good, but aren't these cameras 620? How do you modify them?

What I would like to see is good shots from the old 120's.

MattKing · May 31, 2020

George Mann said:
Those are good, but aren't these cameras 620? How do you modify them?

What I would like to see is good shots from the old 120's.

The Brownie Hawkeyes have the advantage of being able to use 120 film in the feed side, as long as you have a 620 spool on the takeup side.
Winding is a little bit tighter than might be typical, and you have to be careful to keep your 620 spool, but otherwise it works well.

Donald Qualls · May 31, 2020

MattKing said:
The Brownie Hawkeyes have the advantage of being able to use 120 film in the feed side, as long as you have a 620 spool on the takeup side.
Winding is a little bit tighter than might be typical, and you have to be careful to keep your 620 spool, but otherwise it works well.

Actually, some Brownie Hawkeye Flash models (after some date?) have little tabs on the supply spool supports to keep them from accepting a 120 spool, er, to make the 620 spool more secure inside the camera (never mind that a bump that would dislodge the spool and cause a film jam would also shatter the Bakelite housing). Easy enough to remove those tabs, five minutes with a Dremel or fifteen with a small file should do the job, but some folks don't want to modify a "collectible" camera even this much. Even the ones with the tabs will accept a correctly trimmed 120 spool, but they must take up on a 620.

Hunter_Compton · May 31, 2020

George Mann said:
What I would like to see is good shots from the old 120's.

Well, here's a decent shot from a No.2 Brownie Model F, 120 film. Simple lenses can still make nice photos if you realize their limitations.

AgX · Jun 1, 2020

George Mann said:
Which of these box cameras is likely to have the best lense? An Agfa maybe?

To my understanding the typical box-camera lens is a 1-element meniscus.
Some better models though got a 2-element achromat.

Donald Qualls · Jun 1, 2020

AgX said:
To my understanding the typical box-camera lens is a 1-element meniscus.
Some better models though got a 2-element achromat.

A very few simple cameras got simple versions of the Rapid Rectilinear, aka Periscopic lens, too. That's two meniscus, concave toward each other and spaced just so, with aperture and shutter at the center point. The real RR had achromat doublets for each meniscus, but the lenses worked pretty well even with simple elements.

thuggins · Jun 1, 2020

I picked up a Gnome Pixie a while back with the intend of putting in a triplet (or tessar type) with a nice shutter. It's still on the list of things to do...

nosmok · Jun 5, 2020

Years ago, there was a longtime evilBay listing of some old 120 film box camera, with the Taylor-Hobson-Cooke 105mm from a Kershaw Peregrine (the best camera Kershaw ever made) grafted to it. It took about 6 months before somebody bought it; it wasn't me, which is something I still occasionally regret.

Donald Qualls · Jun 5, 2020

Hmm. If I had a box camera that had a bad shutter or similar, I'd be tempted to do this. Except all the 105 lenses I have in shutter are triplets -- not really that much better than the original meniscus.

nosmok · Jun 6, 2020

As well, some box cameras have curved film paths, to compensate for the simple lens' poor flat field performance. Putting a lens optimized for flat field on one of those would make things much worse. That may be how I talked myself out of buying that Taylor Hobson box-- he never showed the insides of the thing in the ad that I recall.

Bud Hamblen · Jun 6, 2020

Add a tripod socket.

Donald Qualls · Jun 6, 2020

Actually, in my experience, the cameras with reverse meniscus (concave to the world, mounted behind the aperture) almost never have a curved film plane. That particular setup, as long as the aperture is the correct distance and small enough, has pretty good field flatness and very limited spherical aberration -- that's why it was used so much; it's the cheapest lens you can install that will give images that stand up to modest enlargement (and look really good on contact prints). The cheap imitation Rapid Rectilinear (double meniscus, but with simple elements instead of achromats) is in the same category; the one I have (Ansco Speedex Jr.) is sharp to the corners with a flat film plane and "normal" focal length (and largest aperture f/11).

The ones I have that use a curved film plane are those with the meniscus lens mounted convex to the world and aperture behind. This was done to trade off salability ("Where's the lens? Did it fall off on the way from the factory, or did it just never have one? Why should I pay $5 for a camera with no lens?") against image quality in the days of contact prints.

Bud Hamblen said:
Add a tripod socket.

Never a bad move, especially if you have shutter speeds below 1/50 or especially B. I never could make sense of the number of consumer snapshot cameras that had a B setting, but no provision to use a tripod.

nosmok · Jun 6, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Actually, in my experience, the cameras with reverse meniscus (convex to the world, mounted behind the aperture) almost never have a curved film plane...

Ah, good to know thanks. My recent experience with 'Box Cameras' have been with stuff like the Agfa Clack and some 620 Kodak thing that do have the curved film plane, but you can see it in their construction. Now I regret not buying that fancy box cam all over again!

Donald Qualls · Jun 6, 2020

nosmok said:
Ah, good to know thanks. My recent experience with 'Box Cameras' have been with stuff like the Agfa Clack and some 620 Kodak thing that do have the curved film plane, but you can see it in their construction. Now I regret not buying that fancy box cam all over again!

Actually, I made a typing error in the post where you quoted it -- the good ones are concave to the world. Convex to the world produces field curvature.

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