Monday, August 22, 2011

Pic of the Week: 07.10.11


brownie automatic 2

Shot of the week for the week of 07.10.11
Taken 07.16.11 with Sigma 50mm macro
(technically the exif says I took this after midnight, but it was still Saturday night in my mind. that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

Not too many people know that I collect vintage Brownie cameras. This particular one is not the 100 year old camera that I posted about on FB a while back, but a fold out bellows camera just looks so much more interesting than a 100 year old box, right? Dust aside, how cool is this old camera?? I think this model is from the 1920's-1930's. It amazes me how little camera technology has changed over the course of 80+ years! Sure, our "film" has changed and capabilities have increased, but all the basic exposure controls--shutter speed, ISO, aperture--are the same now as they were then.

brownie automatic 1
Super close up dust shot, but you can see the bellows a bit better here.
The letters under "Brownie Automatic" correspond to the shutter speeds. You can change the shutter "mode" by moving the little metal tab to a different letter. I'm going to channel my high school photography knowledge here, so forgive me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure what the first letter is (1? I?), but it's the basic automatic shutter speed that you get with simple point and shoot cameras. You click the shutter and it automatically closes after a set amount of time. B stands for "bulb"--this mode keeps the shutter open as long as you keep the shutter lever depressed. T stands for "time"--this mode opens the shutter when the lever is pressed and doesn't close it until you press the lever again.

brownie automatic 3

Here you can kind of see how the bellows folds out of the box.
The silver lever behind the word "Brownie" is the shutter release.
I think the heart shaped tab below the lens is the aperture control, only because this is the only model I own that I can't figure out how to change the aperture (that tab is kind of stuck).
Believe it or not, the small metal box to the right of the bellows is actually the viewfinder! You view your framing from above, and it's all kind of backwards.
The focus you control by moving the bellows backward and forward. There's a little guide beside the bellows that shows the proper placement depending on your distance from the subject.

I didn't take a shot of it, but the whole thing folds into itself and snaps up to roughly the size of a graphing calculator. Pretty cool, huh?
I love old cameras!

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