The No.1 Pocket Kodak is designed to take Kodak’s then-popular but ultimately short-lived autographic film which allows you to use the camera’s metal stylus (which is usually found attached to the brackets just next to the shutter lever but is missing from mine) to record information about the photograph you just took by opening the squat T-shaped window on the rear panel of the camera and writing directly onto the margin of the negative via carbon transfer paper. Regular 120 film also works, of course.
The Kodak No. 1 Pocket Autographic was produced in 1926. There are a few different variants of the same model of the camera that year depending on where it was sold, but the main differences were limited to slightly different front plates.
This wonderfully ornate folding art deco styled camera shoots 6×9 photos on 120 film. Originally designed for the Autographic film, it is great in that it was in a size currently still produced. The whole camera folds into a flat shape which would have fit into a large overcoat pocket, thus its name, which is achieved by using bellows to extend the lens.
It has an achromatic meniscus lens with four aperture settings marked 1,2,3 and 4. Not initially clear what they relate to in real aperture values but I measured it by comparing to another lens and it seems to be roughly f/4 (looks slightly bigger), f/5.6, f/8, and f/11. The shutter is a Kodex in-lens and has four speed settings; 1/50, 1/25, Bulb and Time.
The viewfinder is on a hinge and can be positioned for both portrait and landscape modes. Focus is achieved through a worm screw which you wind on the right-hand side, it has markings for both metres and feet. It is an estimation of-course. The lid has a great art deco styled kick stand and one of the two tripod sockets. The other socket is near the right hand side at the bottom of the camera in landscape orientation.
Loading film into the camera required removing the main body of the camera from the outer shell and is then a matter of putting the film spool on one side and the take up spool on the side with the half circle wind-on key. Once the camera is back into the shell, you wind on until you see the numbers in the little red window. There is no double exposure lock, or automatic winding positioning, you need to line up the number of next frame manually.
Of-course one of the key features of the camera is the Autographic facility. Firstly, there is a window at the back, positioned perfectly to have the writing come out on the frame of the picture. Then there is beautifully decorated stylus, which usually sits on the side of the lens when not in use.
The camera uses a achromatic meniscus lens with a maximum aperture of f/6.3 and a Kodex shutter with four speeds: time, bulb, 1/25, and 1/50. A rotating waist-level viewfinder can be found diagonal from the lens and focusing is achieved via worm screw on the user’s right side of the front panel with a focus distance scale on the left. The Pocket Kodak also features two tripod sockets: one just behind the worm screw for portraits and one on other side of the winding key for landscapes.
The Diana camera is a plastic-bodied box camera using 120 rollfilm and 35 mm film. The camera has a simple plastic meniscus lens. Originally marketed as an inexpensive novelty gift item, the Diana has been used to specifically take soft focus, impressionistic photographs somewhat reminiscent of the Pictorialist Period of artistic photography, but using contemporary themes and concepts, known as lomography.
The Diana frequently suffers from light leaks, film advance issues, and other problems. However, its low-quality plastic lens has been celebrated for its artistic effects in photographs, normally resulting in a slightly blurred composition that can provide a 'dreamlike' quality to the print.
The Diana first appeared during the early 1960s as an inexpensive box camera sold by the Great Wall Plastic Factory of Kowloon, Hong Kong. Most were exported to the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Diana was imported by the Power Sales Company of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. During the 1960s, Power Sales Company wholesaled the Diana by the case – 144 cameras – at about 50 cents U.S. per unit to a variety of retailers and promotional merchandisers.
Most Diana cameras were given away or sold for nominal sums as novelties or prizes at fairs, carnivals, product promotions, raffles, or other events. For a time, the camera was also regularly advertised for sale in various periodicals through mail order vendors. However, with the development of inexpensive, higher quality consumer cameras such as the Kodak Instamatic, together with the declining popularity of rollfilm, demand for the Diana – even as a novelty gift – gradually disappeared. Production of the Diana, its clones, close copies, and variants is believed to have stopped in the 1970s, though similar 35 mm box cameras were produced for many years thereafter by various companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan for use as promotional items.
It is currently marketed as the “Diana+” in the original 120 format as well as 35mm and 110 by Lomographische AG. The current iteration of the medium-format Diana F+ is actually a system camera, with interchangeable lenses, flashes, and film backs. Lomographische AG also makes Diana lens adapters for several major DSLR systems, including Canon EOS, Nikon F-mount, and Micro Four Thirds.
A digital version of the camera was produced in 2014 by Greg Dash of Cyclops Cameras. The project was funded through crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, allowing Dash to produce a limited run of 1000 digital Diana cameras (a camera he called the 'Rhianna').
The Diana is a very simply constructed box camera with a mechanical film advance, spring-loaded shutter, and a primitive plastic viewfinder. It is constructed primarily of low-quality phenolic plastics of the type commonly found in toys imported from Asia during the 1960s. Because of wide variances in production quality, combined with a poorly designed camera body latching mechanism, Diana cameras are predisposed to light leaks onto the exposed film. If not desired, such leaks can be temporarily remedied by sealing the seams with light-proof tape after loading the film. The design of the Diana incorporates a crude lens that produces an image circle which only marginally covers the diagonal of a film frame. This marginal coverage field produces images with often pronounced vignetting. The poor quality of the plastic meniscus lens results in generally low contrast and resolution, odd color rendition, chromatic aberration, and blurred images. Additionally, the film spool may become loose or out of place when winding the film on to the next frame. Finally, the crude advance and shutter mechanism can result in images that are not properly centered or exposed.
Although these attributes are generally thought undesirable in a camera, various photographers and art photography schools have intentionally utilized these characteristics to produce photographs with interesting or artistic effects. Ohio University at Athens, Ohio was one of the first schools to incorporate use of the Diana in beginning and graduate photography programs as a way of stimulating creative vision without undue reliance upon camera features and technology. The use of the Diana in this role achieved a new level of fame when the camera was utilized by American photographer (and former Ohio University photography student) Nancy Rexroth in an influential 1976 photographic exhibit and book entitled IOWA.
In addition to the 'Diana' labeled cameras, there are over fifty similar variants of the basic design, some of which may have been produced by other factories and/or manufacturers. The camera was sold under a variety of model names, often accomplished by merely affixing a different stick-on label to the same product. In other cases, slight modifications to the basic design were incorporated. Some Diana clones use a slightly different molding and plastic composition, while other models have a 'bulb' setting for time exposures. Other variants incorporate a 6×6 cm negative size (like the Diana Deluxe), while others have provision for different controls or even separate flash illumination. The 3 aperture version of the classic Diana/Diana clone has apertures of f/11, f/13, and f/19, and it takes 32 mm clip-on filters. The Diana Deluxe variant offers f/9, f/16, and f/22, and takes a 46–49 mm step-up ring, unusual for such a low-end camera. The modern Diana F+ offers four apertures, including a pinhole. Shutter speed is often variable due to manufacturing vagaries, and can vary from 1/200th to 1/30th of a second. As there is no shutter lock, and the shutter mechanism is always held in tension by a spring, multiple exposures with the Diana can be achieved by multiple operations of the shutter release without advancing the film.
The Diana camera is a so-called "toy camera" that originated in the 1960s produced by the Great Wall Plastic Co. in China.
The camera was produced under many names for different markets. Some were sold as promotional items (there is a Readers Digest version, for example). Most Dianas use 120 film but some versions of the camera take 127 or 620 film.
The lens is plastic with some vignetting in the resulting photographs. Light leaks are a possibility and a lot of users put black tape over the seams to make the cameras leak proof. Each frame is 4cm x 4cm so a roll of 120 film will give you 16 frames. Focusing is done by twisting the lens to 3 zones, 4-6ft, 6-12ft, or 12ft to infinity. There are several variations in top-plate and lens-barrel style; some have fake light-meter windows and a few have flash sync.
Dianas have recently (in c.2007) become very popular for the effects their poor design and build quality can impart to a photograph - so popular that it is now again possible to buy them new, and also possible to pay as much for a Diana as for a cheap -or even a mid-range - digital camera! A revamped, re-engineered version - keeping the same 75mm plastic lens design, called the Diana Plus was produced to satisfy this demand. This has two formats, the original 16 frame 4.2x4.2cm, and a 12-frames-per-film 5.2x5.2cm, and adds features such as a tripod socket and shutter lock. Many accessories have been produced for the new Diana, including an instant-film back, a pinhole lens, a hot shoe and lens converters for Close-Ups, 20mm Fisheye, 38mm Super-Wide, 55mm Wide-Angle and 110mm Telephoto.
Esta fotografia é do exemplar que possuo. Características Twin lens reflex medium format camera, two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective and the other is used for viewfinder system. The two objectives are connected, so that the focus shown on the focusing screen will be exactly the same as on the film. Uses 120 roll film with square 6x6 images. Shutter speeds from 1/250 to 1/15 and a bulb setting, aperture from f/4.5 to f/22, and focuses close at just over a meter. Fonte: Camerapedia
Lomo made this plastic-bodied Twin lens reflex medium format camera beginning circa 1980. It was a small revision to the 1976 Lubitel 166, adding a self-timer. Of its two lenses, the lower one, with the shutter, exposes the film, while the other serves the viewfinder. The two lenses both screw in and out for focusing (rather than being mounted in a racking front-plate as in many TLR cameras); each lens has gear-teeth around the edge, and the two are meshed to couple their focus. There is a focus scale on the viewing lens. Like the earlier Lubitel models, the 166B's viewfinder has a condenser lens rather than a ground-glass screen, with only a small central spot ground for focusing. This (it is a design copied from the focusing model of the Voigtländer Brillant) requires some care in focusing, but gives a much brighter view for framing than would a full-frame ground-glass screen.
The Lubitel 166B uses 120 roll film and exposes 6x6cm square images. Shutter speeds are from 1/250 to 1/15 and a bulb setting; the shutter is synchronised for flash, with a PC socket on the lens barrel, and a cold shoe on the left side of the camera. The lens is a coated 75 mm f/4.5 T-22 triplet lens, with aperture down to f/22, and the close-focus limit is at just over a meter. This accepts 40.5 mm threaded hood and filters.
The camera was sold with a synthetic leather strap, a vinyl case, a push-fit lens cap and a cable release.
The Lubitel is a Russian-made twin lens medium format camera that uses 120 roll film. The camera has a long history and there are many models available. Mine is the fairly recent 166B which takes twelve 6cm square pictures on a roll of 120. If I had to buy it again, I'd probably try to get the 166U which does 6x4.5 (16 rectangular shots per roll) as well as 6x6.
Sadly the Lubitel is no longer in production, but since they are not 'collectible' cameras second-hand Lubitels are cheap, and come up fairly regularly at reasonable prices on Internet auctions. You can even find them new in their boxes at some camera shops if you are prepared to hunt around.
'Twin-lens' means that the lens used for looking through and focusing is separate from the actual lens used to take the shot. The focusing lens on the Lubitel is set above the shooting lens. The Lubitel manages the problem of keeping the viewing lens and shooting lens focused on the same thing using a simple cog mechanism. As you turn the viewing lens, so turns the shooting lens.
The lenses and focusing screen are glass, the mechanics metal, and the body a rather cheap plastic. The thinness of the body plastic makes this a wonderfully lightweight camera (approximately half a kilo). The disadvantage is that even on a secure tripod, the bottom of the camera is still slightly flexible and the whole thing will shudder if tapped or knocked. I've fixed this on mine by gluing a cut up cork coaster to the bottom, between the raised feet, so that I have a larger flat surface making contact with the tripod head.
Focusing can be a little tricky - a little magnifier flips up above the focusing screen, which enlarges the image on a small ground glass circle in the center of the focusing screen. Framing is also a bit hit and miss, particularly at close range due the distortion of the focusing screen, and the viewfinder and shooting lenses being in different places (parallax).
The Lubitel 166B has all the standard manual features: shutter speeds from 1/250 to 1/15 and a bulb setting, aperture from 4.5 to 22, and focuses close at just over a meter. It has a hot shoe on the side of the body, a socket for a mechanical shutter release, and a flip down section in the front of the focusing hood that provides a framing window designed for framing a moving subject (tracking a moving subject on the glass focusing screen can be a bit disorientating). There's no built-in metering, and hence no need for batteries. This is a fully mechanical camera.
The process of taking a shot is roughly as follows:
1. Take a light reading with a hand-held light meter or guestimate the exposure
2. Set the shutter speed and aperture with the dials around the shooting lens
3. Frame using the flip down framing window in the hood
4. Focus using the magnifier to view the ground glass screen
5. Cock the shutter with the cocking lever
6. Trip the shutter using the release lever or a shutter release
The Holga is often said to be a good inexpensive way to get into medium format photography, but personally I'd recommend the Lubitel. The Holga's funky blur and dark edges are charming for many types of picture, but if you want more sharpness in your edges, and more importantly, control over exposure, then the Lubitel is a better choice. Mounted on a tripod the Lubitel can give some very respectable pictures, and even hand-held it is capable of good results. Comparing the picture quality with my other medium format cameras, it comes somewhere between the Holga and the Kiev - closer to the Kiev than to the Holga.
Some would argue that you'd be better off getting a used Japanese twin lens like the Yashicamat or Ricohflex. Certainly the Japanese cameras probably have better optics and will give you sharper pictures, but I you'd have to pay more, and you'd have a heavier camera to carry. If you get the Lubitel 166U, you also have the flexibility to take both 6x6 and 6x4.5. I'm certainly glad I have my Lubitel, and I get a lot of use out of it.
This is a Lubitel 166B. Introduced in around 1980, the Lubitel 166B is a simplified version of the Lubitel 166 and indeed is effectively a Lubitel 2 with a thermoplastic body. Unfortunately the Lubitel 166B retains the use of spindles for both film and takeup spools as introduced with the Lubitel 166. It also retains the Lubitel 166 back catch. Both features which have proved to be weak in actual use.
