Dutch Date - Part 2: The Detrola Model HW and the Falcon Model F

Every so often, I'll get really frugal and ask a couple of cameras to share a roll of film.  Though there are problems here and there, they'll usually agree.  I call these "Dutch Dates" and usually try to pair cameras with something more than simply the film format in common.  Below is a look at just one such pairing...

The two Seniors noshed on some Japanese fare, while recalling the days when their format wasn't at all obscure!

Camera Models: Detrola Model HW (1939) and Falcon Model F (1937)

Similarities: It's as if someone built the shell of this camera for both makers to utilize in putting their own finishing touches and features on their version, as they are that similar.  Both are Art Deco era American Viewfinder collapsible 127 cameras whose design is rich in Art Deco lettering and design work, and as it so happens, both have tended to have a particular dislike of "homemade" 127 film, from previous experience.  Both also have Wollensak 2 inch Velostigmat lenses that have unit focusing instead of front element focusing. 

Differences: The models come from different manufacturers, and have slight differences in top shutter speed, as well as expected differences in trim. 

Film Shared: Rerapan 100 in 127 format, fresh dated. 

If you have read more than a few of my posts, you'll soon note that I'm a bit of a sucker for what are often known as "obsolete" formats.  After successfully cutting down 120 film to feed old 828 format cameras, my attention later turned to 127 format models, and I began to expand my film cutting adventures to this format as well.  However, I discovered some 127 cameras weren't the most enthusiastic about using this custom slit film, often slipping in the film advance, or simply having many issues with film plane flatness.  

Zeh, not Meh - The Zeca Zeh Goldi Camera

For the classic camera collector, picking a handful of favorites can not only be a huge challenge, but it can also be something that largely defies strict logical thought.  

Consider one of my recent acquisitions that has quickly catapulted itself into "Top 10" camera status among my varied collection.  This is a camera that lacks any focusing aids whatsoever, has a top shutter speed of a "whopping" 1/125 of a second, and uses a film format that is especially difficult to find.  

So why would I be so enamored with a camera with such a limited feature set and usability? Because what I have is a camera compact enough to fit in a shirt pocket featuring a sharp, fast f/2.9 lens capable of focusing down to a mere 18", and giving an image size nearly 40% larger than the frame of 35mm film, all in an extremely well made housing indicative of a quality standard that has been abandoned for decades.  This little favorite of mine is the Zeh Goldi.

The diminutive and delightful little Zeh Goldi.

Though marked as "Zeca," the brand of this little known camera is actually known as "Zeh." This German camera maker released the Goldi in 1930, primarily as a half frame shooter of 127 film, though some less common full frame examples are also known to exist.  Zeh also made versions of this camera body for Rodenstock, which sold it as the Ysella.  Thus, while many various lenses can be found on Goldi cameras, it seems that Rodenstock Trinars are among the more common variants.  My particular version has a "Zecanar" branded lens, which may be of Rodenstock make, though it has a particular "hidden" talent that the Trinar variant lacks.  More on that later. 

The Box Camera Baby: The Agfa-Cadet A-8

Surprises can be a very good thing, particularly when they fill an unmet need or want.

I had just won one of those "bulk" camera ebay auctions which somehow closed for surprisingly less than I'd have expected.  In fact, I considered by bid to be a mercy bid that would soon be sniped as the auction drew to a close.  Perhaps I had a little luck on my side, or perhaps traffic was light on this afternoon before a three day weekend, but I now had a motley collection of about 8 cameras that also included the Ansco Goodwin, Rolls, and the Pickwik.

As I surveyed my surprising win, I could see that one of the cameras headed my way would be a more modern Agfa box camera with a lot of patina on its face plate.  Doing a quick look about online, I spotted a very similar looking Agfa-Box B2 camera, and presumed this was what would be in that package on delivery day.

So the true surprise came upon opening the box and discovering the tiniest of box cameras awaiting me.  I had become the unexpected owner of an Agfa-Cadet A-8 camera, a true box camera for 127 film!

Pictures do lie. This seemingly imposing brute of a box camera is likely smaller than the box your last mobile phone was packaged in. 

This adorable little box camera dates from about 1940, and is a bit of an update over previous versions of this camera with a more ordinary leather front.  This model has a metal front with a more Art Deco style to it, with geometric lines inside of the box case and outside of the lens opening, all punctuated by the diamond "Agfa" script logo.  Atop the camera, which measures roughly 3" x 5" x 7", is a leather carrying handle.   

The 127 Auto Ultimate? Ihagee's Auto Ultrix Westentaschen 2850

Some things take work to get right, be they relationships, recipes, or simply routines.  And while instant gratification can be a wonderful thing, there comes a certain sense of satisfaction in working carefully to improve upon something imperfect to gradually improve upon it. 

But getting to that point is not always easy.  It often takes a lot of trial and error, and some careful attention to detail to get things right, or at least close enough.  

Which brings me to my latest feature...

Despite looking rather imposing in this photo, the Auto Ultrix dimensions of roughly 5"x 3" x 1.5"

It had all of the hallmarks of a perfect shooter for me.  Compact and classic in style, yet capably equipped with a Zeiss Tessar lens, this Ihagee Auto Ultrix Westentaschen 2850 (hereafter to be referred to as the "Auto Ultrix" for the sake of brevity) seemed to be my "full frame" 127 format folder that I'd hoped the Agfa Billy Zero would be.  Found through a Craigslist ad, I paid a decent amount more than my typical threshold, but figured that this treat would be worth the investment, as the price was fair.

Super Sleeper: The Kodak Brownie Starflex

About the best barometer of a camera collector's affinity towards a particular example in his active collection would be the number of rolls of film that have passed through its chambers to produce images.  A camera that sees a single inaugural roll of film only to then sit and collect dust would certainly seem to be less favored than a model that has seen numerous rolls of film in the same amount of time.  

Given that I have a decent sized collection, it isn't too often that a particular example stays by my side for several months as a primary camera churning out roll after roll of film, so a camera that sees half a dozen rolls over the course of a year would admittedly be a well favored "high-use" camera for me.

Occasionally, I come to notice that a particular example in my collection has been called into use more than I would have guessed, seeming to indicate that I have a latent, almost subconscious liking of it that comes as a surprise to me.  I call these examples "Sleeper Cameras" as they possess some intangibles that seem to make them inexplicably endearing to me.   This is one of my very few examples of such a camera in my collection...

I'd more or less expected this little camera to be good for one roll and nothing more.  Nope!

Point and Shoot Pity Party Part 2: The Rolls Camera

This is Part 2 of a recurring series on basic point and shoot consumer cameras, the details of which can be found here.

It's a Genuine Rolls Camera proclaims the original box.  I guess that was supposed to be special for some reason?!?  Though it lacks much in features as it has in advertising bravado, the Rolls is among the earlier "Point and Shoot" cameras aimed at the casual photo market. With just two settings: for time exposures and normal exposures, the Rolls is certainly simple to use.  But what sort of photos can it take on 127 size roll film.  Have a look! 

Front View

Top View 

Through the Viewfinder

Name: Rolls Camera

Format: 127

Type: Fixed Focus Point and Shoot 

Year: 1939

Features: Time or Instant Settings.

Lens: 50mm f/16 Rollax.
Battery: None.
Manual: http://www.butkus.org/chinon/rolls/rolls_camera.htm

The Peculiar Paradox of the Perplexing Pickwik

To ponder and postulate the perils of my predicament was particularly problematic.  Phooey!

Sure I'm a "camera collector," but not in the most literal sense.  I like to limit myself to working examples of everything I might acquire and I most certainly seek to run at least one roll of film through everything I may have the fortune to pick up.

A few weeks ago, I happened on a bargain of a lot containing 7 cameras that I snagged for just over $20.  While it was just one camera of this batch that really drew me in, I hoped that at least some of the other more basic cameras were in operable condition to be able to use a time or two as well.  Who knows?  Maybe I would discover a new favorite from the motley assortment.  In a marked departure from my usual luck, it turned out that all 7 cameras had fully working shutters and appeared to need just cleaning to be ready to try out. 

One of the more interesting cameras in the batch was an unusual little guy branded as a "Pickwik." It is a true pseudo-TLR complete with two lenses and a small flip up screen designed to frame fixed focus shots in the 3x4 format on 127 film.  Armed with only settings for "Time" and "Inst," it is a particularly simple if interesting little camera.  I gave it a quick look over to get an idea of its operation and put it in the queue for eventual usage.

A unique and certainly oddball among 127 cameras of the era, the Pickwik "TLR" was an interesting pickup for me.

As it turns out, the odd little camera would be the first of this group to be pressed into service.  As I worked my way through my 21 roll assortment of D-i-Y color films, I had some headaches in advancing a roll of 127 film through my Foth Derby.  I realized only later that this turned out to be that I'd used a single ended spool on the take up side of the camera and it was facing the wrong way. Still, I looked forward to the chance to get a few snaps with the Pickwik, and since I had to open the camera in the dark to re-situate the take up spool anyway, I figured I may as well complete the rest of the roll in the Pickwik instead.  I gave it a quick cleaning with cotton swabs, loaded the film and shot the last 6 shots in this unusual little "TLR" camera of sorts.

Only to get results back like this...

The Zenith of Quirk - The Comet Camera

Beginning in the late 1940's, Bencini of Milan Italy produced a number of uniquely designed 127 cameras under the "Comet" name, culminating with the very distinctive vertically situated Comet III of 1953 that remains today as a highly distinctive and desirable camera among collectors, fetching prices of over $100 on the collector market.

This review is however not of the Bencini Comet.  I may be a quirky guy with a camera but I am also a frugal guy with a family, so my likelihood of picking up a Bencini Comet are pretty slim.

However, I was fortunate enough to pick up a very distinctive 127 camera from the same era, also vertically oriented, and also bearing the Comet name, but made half a world away in the United States by Zenith Camera Corporation.

While a significant amount of American 127 cameras sold in the post war era tend to be of a nearly identical design consisting of using the "half-frame" 127 format and a fixed focus lens, the design of the Zenith Comet is completely distinct from these cameras, and features:

• Near full frame 127 images ranging between 55 and 60mm long.
• An adjustable aperture.
• Instantaneous and time exposure settings.
• A curved film plane.
• Adjustable focus from 4 feet to infinity.
• A uniquely inset viewfinder.

$20, 21 Rolls. A Color Celebration!

The term "do-it-yourselfer" is pretty much a common part of conversational parlance these days, fueled to a large degree by the abundance of home improvement stores complemented by television networks devoted to featuring all of some of their programming to the "DIY" concepts.  Since moving a year ago, my weekend life has involved a oft-frustratingly expanding "Honeydo" list that only seems to grow as each project is finally completed. 

Given this, the thought of processing my own film had never quite appealed to me.  That was until I began to look at what professional developing was costing me.  Despite being a quirky guy with a camera, I'm also a frugal guy with a family, and thus, I began to develop my own black and white film, which proved to be a particularly simple enough exercise once I adapted my methods to something that works pretty readily around my sometimes involved home life. I'd figured that self-processing of black and white film would be as far as I'd venture, and that was fine, given that I'd expected color to be far less forgiving to my methods.

And then, as luck would have it, this all changed.

While perusing the Film Photography Project store, I stumbled upon an offer so good, I simply couldn't resist considering it.  For the measly sum of $19.99, I could get a Unicolor type color processing kit, in addition to 2 rolls of Vision 50T film.  I had just been considering picking up a couple of rolls of the film as it was, but it seemed the Rem Jet backing made it a tough film for which to find processing.  Not only would this address the need to find processing for such film, but it also tossed in the film I would have bought anyway as a bonus!

After a modest amount of online investigation into home processing with such a kit, in which pretty much every review stated that color processing with this kit was actually far easier than initially expected, and also reading that the stated yield of "8 rolls" from this kit had a great deal of elasticity if rolls were processed within two weeks of mixing, I figured that this small investment was certainly worth a try.  And I also figured that if I planned out my batches smartly. I could do as others had testified, and process at least 16 rolls of film from this 8 roll kit.

Without going into great detail of the process (there are already many resources that very capably detail the procedure far better than I could), I can unquestionably say that this was one of the best investments I've ever made.  Processing the first batch was both exciting and terrifying, but once I saw results from this, I managed to calm down to make slight revisions on future batches to make the process a bit more controlled and predictable.  

The ability to process so much color film so cheaply will enable me to really pick up the pace on postings, and has already enabled me to do things that I'd have been hesitant to do otherwise.  I've managed to test several "new" cameras, do a wider variety of things with many of my existing favorite cameras, try different film brands in a variety of ways, and of course do a quirky thing or two that I'd have likely passed up otherwise if it wasn't so affordable and accessible to process color film.  You'll begin to see some of the results of this vast experiment in the coming week.  

And in the meantime, it is only fitting that I provide some sample images from each roll so that you can see just a small fraction of what is to come!  For now, I'm keeping the film and camera of each a thinly veiled secret until I post the accompanying posts of content. 

Roll 1 

A Highly Unlikely Kodachromic Experiment

If you have ever perused the entries of  this blog, it is readily apparent that I have a huge reverence for Kodachrome film.  And this reverence is particularly strong for the first stable emulsion that was produced between 1938 and 1962.  The colors rendered by this "Red Border Kodachrome" tend to really favor the often nostalgic settings they are used to portray.

At times, I have gone through various efforts to replicate this look, either through attempts of digital manipulation or through carefully selecting my subject matter to try to exclude as many tell-tale modern anachronisms as I can.  The results have shown hints of promise, but were largely lacking to me, and as a result, I tended to shelve the efforts.

My conclusions of my first attempts were that the best starting point to replicate this nostalgic look was a film image taken on a vintage film camera.  However, my attempts on the few other transparency films left did not render a palette close to the Kodachrome hues that I'd seen.  In fact, I'd only seen one current film that gave me a hint of a Kodachrome look.

A little while back, I tested a new camera which, despite its operational quirks, did deliver a very retro looking vignetting in its results, while still giving off a sharp central image.  I was at least impressed with this aspect of the camera, and wondered where else I might use this to my advantage.

Which leads me to this - another completely blind stab at replicating the look of Kodachrome using the following as my ingredients:

• A film not made by Eastman Kodak
• A film that is not even a transparency film
• A camera using a format for which Kodachrome was never made.
• A significant amount of foolhardy faith. 
• A limited amount of digital intervention in case the above doesn't pan out.

My film for this experiment is Fuji Pro 400H, the last color negative film made by Fuji in the 120 format, and one pretty well known for its rendering of nice green tones.  In my usual oddball way, I'm not even using it in the 120 format.  Rather, I am cutting this film down to 127 format instead.  The traditionalist in me would have cut this down to 828 instead since it was technically the first format for which the early Kodachrome was made.  However, since this is a 400 speed film instead of a 10-12 speed film like the original Kodachrome, I need to use a camera with adequate enough of a top shutter speed to accomodate such a fast film.

And just which camera might that be?  Why the Foth Derby of course, somewhat appropriate for the course since it was in production when Kodachrome was first released in the late 1930's.  The 1/500 top speed will allow this fast speed film to be used in full sun with the camera stopped down to f/16, something that would not have been possible on a Bantam. Besides, since the Foth is a half-frame 127 camera, it has a 30x40mm image size nearly identical to the 28x40mm image size of the Bantam 828 format.

A couple of lovely days over the Fathers Day Weekend in 2016 delivered some picture perfect weather, so I brought out this classic camera with its unusual film choice to see if I could get results that resembled the Kodachrome of decades past.  Here are some of the better results:

May the Foth be with you: The Derby Camera

In the digital photography era, a photographer who still collects and shoots film cameras can often feel like a kid in a candy store.  It is this feeling that tends to lead to an air of irresponsibility, particularly in the digital marketplace of online auctions.

The ease of finding interesting film cameras combined with a cheap outlay cost for acquisistion often results in the film camera collector finding themselves an owner of cameras which they may not have known about just an hour previously, leaving them the task to figure out a use, if any, for their newly found goods.

While I had heard about, and even read a bit about the Foth Derby, it was never a camera that struck me as a "must-have."  Yet, in my recently discovered interest in the 127 format, as well as my desire to shoot 127 film and come away with more shots per roll than the Agfa Billy 0 would provide, I'd given it enough consideration to place what I considered a lowball bid upon a reasonably decent example of this camera model.  When the last of the sands of the auction's hourglass had fallen down, I was the new owner of a Foth Derby, and no particular plan for it.

A camera design that has its share of genius and not-so-smart.

Comically Candid: The Cardinal Cinex 127 Camera

Ten Dollars.  Some might say I paid too much. I can't say I'd argue that, but for a bit of photographic fun, I'd say the price was about right.

I've happened upon some excellent deals in the sub $20 range for vintage cameras: the small and capable Yashica Electro 35MC, the handy Kodak Retinettes, the amazing Konica Auto S2, the classic Kodak Autographic 1A, and the fun Bell and Howell Electric Eye are just some of the great camera bargains that I have already featured, and there are still more to come.

But the camera featured here lacks the aperture priority of the Yashica, the range of settings of the Retinettes, the great glass lens of the Auto S2, the huge negative size of the Autographic, and the neat meter of the Electric Eye.   But I knew all this going in. 

This is about as bare-boned a camera as there is. Behold, the Cinex 127.

You too can have a "real" camera if you save up enough comics! 

Baby Billy: The Agfa Billy 0

And this is why the resistance was futile!  Finally, a "prequel" to my Boxy Beasts of 127 article to explain how I finally adopted the 127 film format. 

From all perspectives, it was my "final frontier" of the world of roll film.  I'd dived back into 120 film and had finally conceded to add 135 film back into my stable of adopted film formats.  Later, I would come to willingly work with the potential for bigger negatives by using 116 and 122 film, and finally (or so it seemed), I had worked out the gremlins that would allow me to readily and easily use a modified 120 film to stock an increasing brigade of 828 cameras. But there was one other roll film format that I'd been hesitant to touch, despite it having a wealth of both quirk and interesting history - 127.

In fact, as I took inventory of the various film formats in the earliest days of this blog, I even noted specifically "You'd think a niche like this would be perfect for a quirky guy with a camera, but I've never really been swayed by the lure." Even as I got comfy with 828 (particularly "making" the film stock), I couldn't picture adopting the curiousness that was 127 format.  It didn't help that even when I entertained the idea of trying out the format, the cameras I would typically see available for sale either had disappointingly dumbed down feature sets or exorbitantly expensive "collector" price tags.  While it was hardly a priority with me, I did keep the idea of a 127 acquisition in my occasional sights provided I could find a decently featured camera available at a reasonable price.  And if said camera took advantage of the largest 127 format of 6.5 x 4.0 cm, it would really offer an incentive to give 127 a try.

Unexpectedly, two such cameras came into my sights. One was an Ansco Vest Pocket with a folding strut mechanism that began to make me think I had found my gateway into 127. Further browsing however would help me truly find a 127 camera perfect for me: the gorgeous Agfa Billy 0. 

In my humble opinion, one of the loveliest folding cameras there ever was - The Agfa Billy 0

They Still Shoot Super Slides, Don't They?

Long before the days of internet surfing, 24 hour cable television news, and Instagram, times were a quite a bit simpler, and to a great degree more social.  The introduction of Kodachrome transparency film in the late 1930's was slow to take hold, thanks in large part to its initial expense and the interruption of a vast global conflict known as World War II, but by the mid-1950's, a social phenomenon was taking hold, known as the "Slide Show."

Family vacations in a more upwardly and outwardly mobile America were often documented increasingly in color on 35mm transparency films that were mounted in 2"x2" slide mounts and projected to family and friends on a pull down screen in the living room. Kodachrome was the most common medium for these presentations at first, but as the fifties progressed, films using other reversal processes became increasingly common.  These included Ektachrome and Anscochrome, as well as others.  

Around the apex of this phenomenon in the late 1950's, someone, somewhere, whose identity I am unable to determine, stumbled upon a rather interesting discovery that a 127 film frame of 4"x 4" could be efficiently mounted into a modified 2"x2" slide mount, put into the same slide projector used for 35mm slides, and projected onto a wall to create an even bigger square image compared to the rectangles of 135.  Okay, well, actually it might not be quite the "Eureka Moment" I've described here, but as I am unable to ferret out the specific origin of this, it will have to do for now.  

The result, in an era when the most common superlative adjective in the parlance of the day was none other than "Super," would thus be come to be known as "Super Slides."  And it would result in a brief flurry of revitalization for what had been an increasingly marginal format in 127.  

New 127 format cameras were developed in the late 1950's, specifically tailored to this market, ranging from the Baby Rolleiflex on the high end to the Yashica 44 and Sawyers Mark IV in the mid-market, to the Bell and Howell Electric Eye 127 on the low end.  The craze for Super Slides lasted only a brief time, though 127 slide film would be still be produced for at least another 20 years, and mass-produced "Super Slides" would be regularly seen for sale at souvenir stands of tourist attractions for quite some time afterwards.  Unfortunately, Kodachrome never made the leap to the world of 127, which likely had some negative consequences for the durability of the phenomenon, not to mention the slides taken in the early days of this era.

Today in 2016, the "Slide Show" as we think of it is almost entirely a thing of the past, while "Super Slides" are an almost forgotten footnote of that past.  However, the machines designed and manufactured specifically to target to this "fad" remain and are often in fully working condition.  Yet, for the few who both collect and use these photographic gems, their use is often limited to black and white or color negative films rather than to the medium for which they were marketed.  But, to the resourceful and oddball few like myself, a true "Super Slide" taken in the present is still entirely possible, given a bit of effort.

A look at some super slides of 40x40 mm image size compared to 36x24mm slides taken on 35mm film stock. 

The World's Longest Roll of 127 Film

There are times in one's life when seemingly small gestures result in meaningful changes to one's routine that were neither expected nor intended.  For me, it all started with a roll of film.

This was not just any roll of film, but a gift of sorts: an ordinary roll of long-expired 220 Kodak Tri-X shared with me as part of a film windfall by Mike Eckman.  And this was a roll, that when I got it, I had no idea what I would ever do with it, given that I didn't have a 220 camera in which to use it.

But Mike had a few rolls of this film too, and also had no official 220 camera in which to load it, yet he had an interesting idea that made perfect sense, essentially to load the 220 film (which lacks any backing like 120) into a 620 camera with an automatically measured advance (lacking the need to peer through a red window to scroll to the next frame) and reset the counter halfway through to make use of the full roll.

I had considered doing something similar in the Yashica 12 or Seagull since they had similar arrangements, but before I ever had the chance to do so, I began getting into the 127 format, and found a lot of interest with the Revere Eye-Matic which also sported a similar  measured film advance and no porthole window to fog film that lacked backing.  And then an idea began to surface, namely to cut down this 220 roll of film to a REALLY long roll of 127 film.  If I was able to do this successfully, I figured I could ferret out 36 shots in 4x4 format from this one roll of 127 film, three time the yield of a standard 127 roll.  Thus, I badged my odd creation as the "World's first roll of 327 film!"

I loaded the Revere in the dark and began my shooting adventure on Easter Sunday of 2016, continuing in the week or so afterward, picking up roadside shots along the old National Road in Maryland, in Downtown Washington DC, and as well as near the Monocacy National Battlefield, giving the Revere a great chance to strut its oft overlooked stuff.  Once I had run the full length of the roll, I quickly sealed up the exposed roll in a light-tight canister and sent it off along with a few others to my favorite lab to give them "the honor" of developing this groundbreaking roll of film.  

But here's where that "meaningful changes" part comes into play.  A few days later, I got an email from the lab asking for some guidance. They had tried several times to load my special roll of 127 onto the reels with no success.  It seems that when I cut it, I slit the film too narrow to fit into the preset reels.  They could send it to a dip and dunk lab or send it back. After a little bit of thought, I chose the latter.  This was just the impetus I needed to perform an even more meaningful experiment: developing my own black and white film.

I'd done some degree of film developing 25 years ago, but most of my darkroom experiments were largely more geared towards printing.  Still, I recalled the general work flow of film developing and thought I could handle it.  But I would need a few things to get this experiment underway.

I decided that a bottle of New 55's R5 Monobath would make the ideal gateway back into the world of the darkroom.  I combined this with a second hand VR developing tank with an adjustable reel (that I could squeeze down to a width a bit narrower than 127) as well as a few other items such as clips, thermometer, and some mixing containers.  It was now time to get off the ground and give it a try.

Loading the film reels was a royal pain, and I eventually had to concede and split the super long roll of 127 in two.  Thus, my hope of a really long roll of 36 continuous 127 exposures as a cover shot for this article was dashed.  The good news is that the experiment worked...well mostly.  The film didn't always sit on the reel right, and I was very rusty about loading it.  As such, some of the film came into contact with adjacent film in the reel, keeping it from developing properly.  Then there is the matter of the exposures themselves.

The Revere seems to be an interesting beast - sometimes it takes flawless photos, and sometimes, it just doesn't seem to have the proper registration.  Add in a film that lacks a paper backing, and things just get a little, well weird.  Just how you may ask.  Tour the results of this loooooong roll of 127 yourself, and you shall see!

The super long roll of negatives was supposed to be the cover shot for this article, but since the roll was split before developing, that never happened.  Instead, I present the first exposure of this roll of "327" film.

Boxy Beasts of 127: the Bell and Howell Electric Eye and Revere Eye Matic 127

Resistance was futile.  

I kept telling myself I had no need to go into the format of 127.  I continually insisted that there was no benefit or interest in my part into making a mad foray into yet another largely forgotten format.

Resistance was futile.  

I discovered one really neat camera (article forthcoming!) that made the perfect gateway into this rather obscure format, so I snapped it up, dipping my feet into the 127 pool in the process.

And then with the format being formally introduced to me, I dove in.  I should have known just how futile resistance really was.

Often known originally as "Vest Pocket" format, the 127 roll film format provided snapshooters of the early part of the 20th Century with a truly compact option for photography when compared with the substantial cameras in 116 and 122 format also available at the time. The format was in many ways the most interesting of any, particularly given that it had a unique tendency to fade in interest, only to rise again as camera makers were able to create new ways to capitalize on its film size or convenience to reinvigorate interest in the format yet again.

As my own interest in the 127 format began to grow, and having finally made the leap into this sort of "mini-120" format, I happened upon a pair of square format 127 cameras that hit the market in 1958, both making use of selenium cell "Electric Eye" technology to be able to provide a rudimentary automatic exposure on its images, making them easier for the casual snapshooter to use.  The emergence of the fad of"Super Slides" around this same era helped to give both of these cameras an initial boost in the market when they were introduced.

And while many 127 cameras made through history were created with designs that emphasized portability and compactness, neither of these tend to follow that mantra. Instead, adjectives such as obnoxious, obtrusive, or even ungainly may come to mind when seeing the form factor of these cameras that make use of the miniature roll film format.

Meet the Bell and Howell Electric Eye 127 and the Revere Eye Matic EE-127!