The Acid Test: First 'serious' roll of 120 through the ol' Kodak 3A Camera.

[removed account4]

great thread !
fun to see others using these old beautiful cameras !
i have 2 autographic 3a's one belonged to my grandparents, its a kodak folder
and had a spool in it .. the other is a graflex .. its the 2nd one i bought, the first one
was purchased about 14 years ago from jay tepper and i wasn't quite ready to use it,
kind of in terrible condition and he had a bullet proof return policy and accepted the return
and refunded the $$ ... a few years ago i found another one and it had a spool in it, so i just
trim down 8x10 paper taped a few strips of it end to end and spooled it and used hand rolled 122 size
paper. i never wrote the #s on the back for the ruby window but i have guestimated how many cranks it takes to
have a bit of space between views. im a bit off sometimes but i don't worry about it ... i haven't put glass plates in mine ( i only use the graflex )
and the folder had an spring back and dry plate holders that were sold as accessories )
i have more fun with a barely trimmed sheet of 5x7 paper in the back and it fits perfectly to have a full sized negative appear almost center weighted ( exact center ) of the paper
the down side is well, you can only expose 1 view and have to reload in a tent or in the darkroom, and kind of a PITA, but the view looks beautiful in that format.

have fun with your new adaptated to 120 camera they are a blast to use.

john

 

[NedL]

....i have more fun with a barely trimmed sheet of 5x7 paper in the back and it fits perfectly to have a full sized negative appear almost center weighted ( exact center ) of the paper

This is exactly how I use mine most of the time. The full 7" paper goes right over those rollers and it does not slip at all.

the down side is well, you can only expose 1 view and have to reload in a tent or in the darkroom, and kind of a PITA, but the view looks beautiful in that format

Or the upside! I really like going out with just the single sheet loaded, not sure how to describe it, but there is something special about only being able to make one photograph.
And I agree that view has a nice feel to it... I like it so much that I used it on both of the larger format cameras I've made. Great stuff!