Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Brownie Flash Six-20

Here's a picture of one of my vintage cameras. A 1939 Kodak Brownie Flash Six-20 with the flash attachement and unexposed flash bulb. Pretty cool don't you think? I can't remember if I used this camera or not. For a while we wound 120 film on 620 spools to use 620 cameras, but I have other old 120 cameras that I used and you could just throw the roll of film in them. I tended to favor the 120 cameras.

6 comments:

Diane Lowe said...

Oh cool! :)

Do you still have a supplier for that film and a place to develop it? Or would you have to develop that in your own darkroom?

don said...

I think there's a website where you can get film. There used to be anyway. 120 is the same as 620 except the spools are different and the marking on the paper backing.

You can put 120 in a 620 camera by winding it onto 620 spools and then after it was exposed, you could put it back on the 120 spools and send it in I guess. But I'd just develop it myself. B&W anyway. We always kept extra spools.

You can work around the marking on the paper, the arrows and numbers for advancing the film to the next frame that you view through a small window on the back of the camera. You can re-mark an old paper and use that or just count how many times to turn the knob to advance the film. That was what I did. It's easy enough to figure out.

I don't use any film now though and probably won't ever again. If I were going to shoot some 120 I'd probably use the Yashica or I have a 120 box Zeiss.

Jules said...

It's definitely interesting!! I would be clueless with that camera though..

don said...

Brownies were easy to use once the film was in Jules. All people had to do was push one button. :)

kenny said...

how much are they worth ? do you now

don said...

Brownies can range from $10 to $80 depending on condition and who wants to buy. Most of them are around $15. I'd say a fair price for a really nice one is $25 or so. They made lots of them in various forms and they were cheap to begin with, so they really aren't worth much.

The cool thing about mine is I have the flash and the bulb.