Upside Down Film

I have a lovely little Zeiss Ikon 6x4.5 of pre-war vintage. It has been sitting in a display case, but as the shutter fires about as it should and an inspection of the bellows revealed no pin holes, I decided to take it out on this lovely autumn day. The film loads backwards from all my other folders, i.e. the take-up is on your right as you are looking into the back of the camera. So I loaded the full spool on the left (upside down), closed the back, and started winding.

The next thing that seemed odd is that there are two ruby windows. I have other cameras with two windows but those take a mask for various aspect ratios, and you open one or the other window as is appropriate for the mask. The Zeiss only shoots 6x4.5 and both windows are operated by the same button, so they are either both open or both closed. I figured as long as I picked the same window each time, everything should be fine. The numbers were upside down, but I had expected that.

The sky is clear, the afternoon sun is low; my Ikophot reads sunny 16 and I'm shooting away, anticipating the sixteen bright, colorful Provia frames I'll get back in the mail in a couple of weeks. Instead, I got eight frames and then the telltale indicator for the end of the roll. On checking a spent roll the reason was obvious. The ruby windows align to the 6x9 counters; the 6x4.5 counters are along the other edge of the backing.

I gather that this is the reason for the two windows. You advance the film until the (6x9) number 1 shows in the left window, take the shot, then advance the 1 to the right window, take the shot, then advance the 2 to the left window, lather rinse repeat.

The camera does have a sticker inside telling you to use Zeiss film. Was the paper backing on Zeiss film turned 180 degrees from Kodak and Fuji? Who came up with this crazy scheme?

I had a Certo Dolly SuperSport which was 6x6 with a 645 mask. 6x6 worked well and the numbers lined up. The 645 windows did not, would not, and could not be made to line up with the numbers on the paper. I stuck to using is as a 6x6.

Back then in Germany of the 30s rollfilms were not identical to Kodak's.
There also were no numbers for 4.5x6 .


As a side note: there were one kind of type 120 and two shorter versions on the market.

Yes, they were B-2, B-4 and the like, 2 and 4 were the frames one could shoot in 6x9, a full roll as we know today would have been a B-8.
I don't know about different placings of the frame numbers, but why should they do that?
I never had one of those rolls in my hands, also, if I had, I would never have checked wether the numbers line up.
If I ever happen to come across one, I'll do just that and report back to you ;-)

To operate your Zeiss- Wind forward until '1' is in the first window (nearest the feed spool). Take image, then wind until the same '1' is in the second window. After this, put the 2 in the first window, then the second window, etc. This is how it works using the 6x9 numbers on the film backing.

AgX said:

There also were no numbers for 4.5x6 .

Click to expand...

That is a useful bit of trivia. It certainly explains the odd two window arrangement.