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Old 30th September 2016, 11:22 AM
Musicat Musicat is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 734
I have a Kodak bellows 620 cam in the basement (8 shots, 2.25 x 3.25" negs). Not sure of the model number, but I think it was called a "tourist." It was pretty upscale at the time (1942) -- shutter speed, focus and aperture are all adjustable. f4.5 lens, 1/500 shutter, blind focus, 2 viewfinders. I understand 620 film can be had again now, and I'm tempted to try it, but I'm not sure how the film would be developed. I could do it myself, maybe -- I've done hundreds of rolls in the past.

And I still have a Polaroid SX-70. Should work, and again, I understand you can get fresh film, although anything like that or the 620 stock is pretty expensive, especially when you compare it to a digital image on my digital phone.

Until an uncle cleaned out the family basement, my favorite old camera was made around 1900, and was a 4x5 glass plate "changer", that is, it could hold about 8-10 plates, and by turning a crank, an exposed plate would drop down and reveal a fresh one behind it. How it avoided exposing the wrong ones, I don't know. I think this cam was used by my mother's family ca. 1910, and I still have several boxes of developed glass plates that they took of the Lake Mendota area near Madison. There are no buildings around the lake in these images, but Madison has grown up, and now, there are no areas without buildings. Might be interesting to see if someone could compare 110yo images with today.
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