January 27 - Happy 127 film day

Shanghai's GP3 127 film - the only currently available fresh  b&w 127 film

Well, my buddies at the Film Photography Project have announced today as 127 film day, and let's take a little look at the film that was once called "vest pocket" film by Eastman Kodak. 127 film was introduced in 1912 by Kodak for its Vest Pocket cameras.  The reason it is called 127 is because it was the 27th roll film introduced by Kodak since the 101 size in 1895.  (Which means that 120 was the 20th size that Kodak introduced, - sorry to deflate you, 120mm idiots). The Kodak Vest Pocket camera was truly an innovation at a time when "real photographers" were still using glass plates.  The camera collapsed into a thick object the size of a tobacco tin, and did fit into a vest pocket, back when men wore vests.  The VP Kodak was possibly one of the few cameras used by soldiers in WWI to document what it was like in the trenches.  Collapsed, it could be easily hidden, and quickly brought out to use.  The "trellis struts" held the front standard away from the back. The lens was a Meniscus Achromatic with a Kodak ball-bearing shutter. This YouTube video on the VP in WWI is definitely worth a watch.

The OG VP Kodak.  1912-1914. Image courtesy of SBA73 on Flickr

From the start, 127 was the "miniature" film, as other cameras at the time used much larger formats. Back in the heyday of folding cameras and consumer-oriented box cameras, you typically received contact prints from the drugstore where you dropped off your film. For 120, 116, and larger formats, the contact prints were of a decent size, but with 127, the biggest size was 1-5/8 x 2-1/2 inches - what we might call wallet-size photos today. 127 film is a roll-film, and the full frame size is 4 x 6.5 cm. However, you can also have 4x4 cm  and 3x4 cm negatives (half-frame), resulting in 16 exposures.  A fairly economical choice for the casual snap-shooter. 

From the Bell & Howell Electric Eye (2004)

from the Kodak Brownie Reflex (2011)

from a Beacon 127 camera (2004)

 Kodak went on to produce a lot of 127 film cameras, from the Vest Pocket (1912) and the No. 0 Brownie box camera (1914) to the last one, the Brownie Fiesta in 1966.   To Kodak, the 127 film format was for every-day consumers, and the cameras they produced for it reflected that.  However, with the introduction of the 126 Instamatic in 1963, the days for 127 were numbered.  Mom and Pop no longer had to thread the film from the spools. Just drop in the cartridge and you were ready for at least two holidays.  That would have been 126 day - yesterday!

Kodak's Bakelite wonders - Baby Brownie Special and Baby Brownie

Imperial Mark 27

The Fed-Flash

One of the varieties of the Clix-O-Flex

About as cheap as you can get - a Deluxe Cinex

There are a plethora of cheap US-made 127 cameras available - and most of them are simply nothing more than toy cameras, such as those sold under the Falcon name by the Utility Mfg. Co. in New York. Metropolitan Industries in Chicago sold a slew of 127 cameras, with the Clix-O-Flex being the most well-known. Spartus in Chicago sold many inexpensive 120 and 35mm cameras, but also a couple for 127- the Cinex and the Spartus folding camera - which greatly resembles the original VP Kodak. Almost all these cheaper cameras appeared in the late 1930s until WWII.  

A shot from my Clix-O-Flex, 2007

There are also lots of European cameras that were made for 127 film. Some from Ferrania, and the first Exaktas from Ihagee before the Kine Exakta I. The Bilora Bella 44 was sold in several versions..  The Purma Special (1937-51) from Great Britain might be one of the most elegant and yet strange designs for a camera.  Ruberg and Renner in Hagen, Germany, manufactured a bunch of 127 cameras in the 1930s. Zeiss Ikon sold the Baby-Box cameras and the Kolibri in the 1930s. Nagel's Pupille,  Ranca, and Vollenda cameras are well-made 127 models, sold before Kodak acquired Nagel in the late 1930s.  

Ferrania Rondine - cute, eh?

Kodak's Vollenda, made by Nagel A.G.

Balda's Micky-Rollbox Model II

Looks much better than it is! The Light Super.

Meanwhile other companies did take the 127 format seriously in the 1950s, and made cameras to take advantage of the smaller film size.  The Baby Rolleiflex, the Yashica-44, and the Sawyers Mark IV are all 4x4 cm Twin Lens Reflex cameras with good optics, a range of shutter speeds, and of course, focus via the TLR method.  I'd say that the 127 TLRs are the most desirable cameras to use for that film size.  So, if you are interested in trying 127 film, look for one of those TLRs.  I'd shy away from any of the cheapest toy cameras to shoot 127, since the film is certainly expensive due to its limited availability, and stick to b&w, so you can home develop.  

The Yashica-44 is a nice little TLR

I sure miss Verichrome Pan film

Kodak stopped producing 127 film in 1995.  It had a long run for a consumer format. Longer than 126, 110, 828, and APS!  

So, happy 127 day!  

Ansco Cadet outfit

It's the Holiday Season

Holiday Flash Brownie

Now that I can develop my own C-41, it's given me the chance to catch up on some larger roll-film developing, and this roll of Kodak Portra 160 that was respooled for 127 had been sitting on my shelf since after World Toy Camera Day (back in early October).   I shot it in a Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash, an unassuming little Bakelite camera that has been sitting on my shelf, as well. As far as 127 goes, it's a full-frame model, meaning that the negatives are ca. 4x6 cm, giving 8 shots per roll. This camera has a Dakon lens, so it was manufactured  between 1955 and 1963.
I didn't know what to expect from this little camera, but I took it out for a walk to peach Mountain Observatory near Dexter, MI, and it turns out that it may have given me the best images for WTCD that I've taken in a while.
It certainly qualifies as a toy camera, as there is only a shutter button for control.  That's as rudimentary as any box camera.  The Holiday Flash Brownie also has a glass cousin, a Christmas tree ornament that I bought about 5 years ago. It's one of

my favorite ornaments, and looks very much like the real thing.
So, I developed the roll of Portra today, and I was astonished at how good the negatives were.  I don't have any film holders for 127, so I simply used the area mask in my V700 scanner, laid the negs emulsion-side down, and covered them with a sheet of 8x10 glass to flatten them out.  I had to tweak the orientation a bit, but overall, the scans came out quite good.  Peach Mountain is mostly UM property, and there is a radio astronomy observatory, as well as a Lowbrow Astronomers Observatory with a 24" optical telescope, and an abandoned UM observatory. All make for some interesting images.  The sunny day and open shade did not thwart the Portra 160's latitude.  I can see why this film was used in school portrait cameras, which is where the bulk rolls of Portra 160 come from.

Here is a screen capture of the negatives, followed by some of the scans.

The Kodak Brownie Reflex

I have divested myself of most of my 127 film cameras, but the Kodak Brownie Reflex I have recently shot with is one that sat on a shelf for a number of years before I finally put some film in it. I had a roll of 40+ year old Kodak Verichrome Pan in 127 size,(the best film ever for box cameras), so I figured that I may as well finally try out the Brownie. While it looks much like a TLR, it's really just a box camera with a reflex (mirror) viewfinder. My camera is a bit grungy on the viewfinder part, but the taking lens (a simple meniscus lens) is clear. Note that the camera has I and B settings - for "Instant" and "Bulb". The frames are square 4x4 cm, with 12 exposures on a roll. The model I have is the "synchro" version, made from 1941-1952, meaning that it accepts a clip-on flash unit. The body is mostly made of black bakelite, and it really is a stylish box camera, complete with neck strap. I started the roll of VP127 back in June, when my daughter Jorie and I went on a photo safari to Indiana, and finally finished the roll yesterday by taking some shots in Ann Arbor. I developed the film in Kodak DK-50 1:1 for 6 minutes. That particular developer seems to work really well with old Verichrome Pan. I like the square format, and considering the age of the film AND the age of the camera, the results are pretty decent.

The theater in Angola, Indiana. June 2011.

Decatur, IN., June 2011.

The railroad trestle near Argo dam, Ann Arbor. 12/26/2011. Note that this, the last image on the roll, is quite free from the markings found on the beginning of the roll.

I might shoot 127 more often if it were not for the fact that the only b&w film is Efke, and that 127 film is a pain to scan, as there are no film holders for it. However, I certainly have enough 120 and 35mm cameras to use, and 127 remains a rarely-used format. At one time, it was quite popular, and pretty much died out as a consumer film once Kodak brought out the Instamatic cartridge in 1963. There are still some beautifully-made 127 cameras that are worth trying -- the Sawyers 127 TLR, the mini Rollei, and the Ricoh Super-44. Such compact TLR cameras are fun to use, and produce excellent results.