The third camera I tried was the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash Model which was manufactured between May 1949 and July 1961 and was one of the most popular cameras in the US during that time.
As with the other cameras I used Ilford Delta 100 ISO Black & White film. Specifications on the camera are as follows | 81mm focal lens | fixed F15 aperture | 1/30th to 1/50th of a second fixed shutter speed | 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 inch negative size. My particular camera was manufactured in September 1952.
For more info on the camera |
http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie_Hawkeye
I got back the results of the roll of film I put through the camera and they are very weird. Either the camera is broken or I might have messed it up.
The contact sheet |
As you can see the quality of the images is very unusual. Exposures are inconsistent | there is blur on on the edges of the images and looks sort of like camera movement | sharpness is an issue
Obviously something is wrong and as I mentioned it might be my fault. The inside of the lens was filthy so I started to take it apart | two screws hold the film carrier to the camera where the lens is. Once it was loose a tiny plastic lens and an undulating washer fell out. I cleaned the lens, but did not know which way it should go back or which side the washer was suppose to be on. So I might have put the lens back on backwards.
Though I like the results of these strangely eerie pictures, I again took apart the camera and again the lens and washer fell out | I try to take precautions to see what way it had been placed. So I put it back with the concave part of the lens facing away from the film plain and shot a roll of film today.
Hopefully, there will be better and more consistent results without the unexplainable blurring.
Please note | these images are blow-ups from a digital contact sheet so image quality is poor compared to scanned negatives
And here are the individual images with some photoshop |
