If you've read my article on my Pinhole Camera you'll know I have more than a passing interest in alternative photography (I prefer calling it "traditional" photography but let's not go down that rabbit hole). Being a glutton for punishment (and with a penchant for making life more difficult than it needs to be) a casual browse on a certain auction site back in May 2019 produced a lot of results for old Kodak cameras at a very reasonable price. One style in particular caught my eye as it was almost identical to an old camera that used to sit, unused, in a drawer in my grandparent's house and which I remember scrutinising as a child with confused wonder. I have no idea what happened to that camera after they died but a mix of curiosity and nostalgia forced my hand. At a little over £18 this wasn't going to break the bank and so, a few clicks later, I became the owner of an Eastman Kodak No. 2C Folding Autographic Brownie, first built somewhere between 1917 and 1926.
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| Eastman Kodak No. 2C Folding Autographic Brownie |
On receipt it was apparent that the camera was in dire need of some TLC. The faux leather covering the body was bubbled and peeling and the whole thing was covered in dust and grime but importantly, the bellows were intact and for the most part, the shutter mechanism worked just fine.
Now, these things aren't rare and I don't care about keeping this in its original condition - it's not going to be a museum piece - and to be honest, if I left it alone the condition was only going to deteriorate further: it was pretty obvious that the aluminium body was oxidising, which had ruined the faux leather covering causing it to bubble and lift. So job one was to fix this up as best I could before using it for it's intended purpose. It wasn't possible to completely dismantle the camera for a proper restoration as many parts are riveted in place and without the proper tools would be impossible to reconstruct, but I did the best I could.
Over the next few weeks I peeled off all the faux leather (it was too easy, most of it just lifted right off) and chemically stripped the flaking paint from the interior. I used a paste made from equal parts flour, vinegar and salt to remove small areas of verdigris that had built up on some of the brass and copper parts.
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| The removed sheets of original faux leather. The white powder is aluminium oxide. |
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| Stripping the camera back to the bare metal |
This left a pristine shell to repaint and cover. I bought a length of thin leather look vinyl (0.7mm thick) and some car paint (grey primer, flat black and semi-gloss black) to complete the "restoration".
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| The freshly painted interior of the camera |
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| The new vinyl being applied to the camera body. |
The painting was extremely easy. Applying the new vinyl to the bodywork however, was much more difficult and required very careful cutting around the film winding handle (not removable), tripod sockets, carry handle knobs and the autographic "window". To cut a very long story extremely short, a lot of frustrating trial and error finally resulted in an acceptable finish. Not perfect, not by a long shot, but acceptable. Most of the problems I encountered stemmed from the fact that the replacement vinyl was somewhat thicker than the original faux leather and this resulted my exceeding some of the tight tolerances in the original build. If I was to cover it again (and I still might) I would use Tolex, which is the stuff used to cover guitar amplifiers.
I wasn't able to dismantle the lens (I didn't have a lens spanner wrench at the time) and so I could only give this a surface clean. I made short work of the remaining dust and grime with cotton buds, hot soapy water and a liberal application of isopropyl alcohol. As the bellows appear to be very delicate, I left them alone and only gave them a very light dusting with a soft brush. The final result is a much cleaner camera that is ready for use.
So. Now that we have a camera in much improved condition, how does one go about using a camera like this? Well, first let's look at a little video I prepared going over all the main features:
Now, what about taking some pictures? Well, by my reckoning there are 3 options:
1. Buy a 120 film conversion kit.
2. Buy sheet film.
3. Use paper negatives.
To be absolutely honest, I didn't want to go through the hassle of preparing and developing sheets of panchromatic film to try this camera out. It has to be handled in complete darkness which would be a pain as cutting it to size without being able to see what I was doing would be ugly. Orthochromatic film on the other hand can be handled under a safe light and I'm very tempted by this for a future project but for the purposes of this test, and because I have some experience of using photographic paper as a negative, this was by far the easiest option. To that end I bought 25 sheets of 5×7" Multigrade glossy and in my make-shift darkroom cut these to fit inside the camera. This Folding Brownie will comfortably accept a sheet cut to 162mm × 88mm (6.38 × 3.46 inches) and will project an image that is 125mm × 74mm (4.92 × 2.91 inches) within that, leaving a nice border.
With paper loaded into the Brownie it was time to get an exposure. There was nothing on the interwebs to give me any ideas as to what the exposure time should be so this was going to be wholly trial and error. Obviously this method makes it a one shot camera so I would need to take a test exposure, develop it and see the results and adjust exposure for the next shot until I established a good exposure time (for the current lighting conditions). I took three initial test shots, all with the aperture set at 1 on the camera, under completely overcast skies and with wildly different exposures which gave the following results:
- 1/25th of a second - badly underexposed
- 15 seconds - completely overexposed
- 1 second - just about perfect
I did this just to get to grips with the camera and paper combination. Photographic paper is sensitive to the blue and UV end of the light spectrum, and not sensitive at all to the red end (which is why you can handle it under safe light conditions). I can't look at the environment and see how much UV light is in the scene so it's impossible to accurately meter so my test exposures went from reasonably fast to very slow (1/25th of a sec and 15 seconds) which told me roughly where to go to next. 1/25th was badly underexposed (with only extreme highlights showing) but 15 seconds was badly overexposed (completely blown out) so one second was the next logical step and as it happened, this was perfect. The vigilant amongst you will know that the Folding Brownie does not have any sort of timer so when I say one second, this really means that I counted "one elephant" whilst manually opening and closing the shutter in bulb mode. I specifically chose an overcast day to drastically cut down on brightness, to diffuse the light, reduce harsh contrast, and finally, because I live in Scotland and more often than not it's overcast, to make it easily repeatable.
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| One Second exposure (approx) at Stop No. 1 |
The first decent exposure, taken with a wide aperture (Stop No. 1) was very soft and swirling, not without a certain charm, and a consequence of old lens design. The user manual (and yes, I was able to track down a user manual for this antique) advised using a smaller stop for a sharper picture. This makes sense - the smaller the aperture the sharper the image should be and so the next experiment was to try this setting. This would double the exposure time, giving me "two elephants". The model this time was me. My son (under instruction) was the photographer.
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| 2 second exposure (approx) at Stop No. 2 |
This picture is definitely sharper than before but it's still blurry. Notice how it's obviously sharper at the centre and increasingly distorted towards the outside. I suspected better results could be had with Stop No. 3. So, that was the next step. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't playing ball and it happened to be cloudless, hot sunny day when I decided to try this so I was back to experimenting with shutter speeds to get an accurate exposure in these new (and rare) conditions.
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| Left to Right: 1/25th, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 Second at Stop No. 3 |
As it happens the correct exposure is probably somewhere between the ½ second and 1 second exposure, but it was very bright and the 1 second exposure looks about right, though it seems flat compared with the ½ second version. However (though it may not be noticeable in these small copies), Stop No. 3 is markedly sharper than any of the lower aperture settings. The distortion so readily apparent at Stop No. 2 is gone, so that is point proved. However, sharpness isn't everything and the "character" of this lens has a certain appeal at the wider stops.
Now, how you may ask, does one obtain accurate ½ and ¼ second exposures? Well one makes sure the camera is on a rock solid tripod, one sets the shutter speed to 1/25th of a second, and one takes multiple exposures (i.e. you keep pressing the shutter). 6 times for the equivalent of ¼ of a second and 12 times for ½ second equivalent. Easy. Anything longer than that and we're back to counting elephants.
I'm very satisfied that I've got this thing (for the first time in a very long time I suspect) taking photos with a reasonable degree of success, so now we move on to how I'm developing the pictures.
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| Basic darkroom equipment and chemicals |
I'm doing this at the most basic level it's possible to do, and it's really very easy. However, there are a number of things you will absolutely need:
- A room which can be made completely dark with enough free work surface for the 3 developing dishes. I'm using a storage cupboard with a bit of shelf space.
- Paper developing solution, stop bath and fixer. You will need these 3 chemicals to develop the pictures but they are easy to obtain and reasonably inexpensive. Small half litre bottles will suffice to start - you dilute these so they will go quite a long way.
- 3 developing dishes. These are to hold the developer, stop bath and fixer. You'll struggle to get by without them and make sure you obtain dishes which are larger than the largest print you intend to develop. Mark your dishes so that you know which ones you are using for which chemicals - you don't want to ever be contaminating future development so always use the same dish for the same chemical.
- 2 tongs. These are for moving the pictures between trays as you develop. 1 pair is for moving the photo from the developer to the stop bath. The other pair is for moving from the stop bath to the fixer.
- 1 red safe-light. Unless you want to be working in complete darkness, one of these is highly recommended.
- 3 small measuring cylinders. 50 or 100 millilitres will suffice. You need these so you can accurately measure your chemicals. Mark your cylinders so that you know which ones you are using for which chemicals - you don't want to ever be contaminating future development so always use the same cylinder for the same chemical.
- A thermometer. The developing solution I use must be used at 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) so the thermometer is needed for accuracy. My house and makeshift darkroom are generally much warmer than 20 Celsius so I have to periodically pop the developing dish into a refrigerator to cool it off before exposing the next print.
- Water. This is for rinsing off the developed print but if you have running water you're covered.
Once you have this equipment, the chemicals need to be mixed. The instructions for mixing will be provided on the bottles. For the stop bath and fixer simply follow the instructions and mix enough to fully immerse your pictures comfortably. For the developer however, I received some advice to ignore the instructions (which state to dilute 1 part solution to 9 parts water) and instead dilute 1 part solution to 19 parts water. This makes it much weaker than standard and should reduce the tendency to make the final print too contrasty and I have been very pleased with the results.
OK, so, your trays are now comfortably filled with dilute chemicals , you are in your makeshift darkroom with your safe-light on and the developing solution is at 20 Celsius. The exposed print can now be removed from the camera.
The print goes in the developing solution first. Try to push it into the solution in one swift stroke so as to cover it in quickly and start counting seconds. Push it down with a pair of tongs to ensure it's submerged then start gently rocking the dish to keep the solution in motion. Keep counting all the time. After about 10 seconds the picture should start to develop before your eyes. It's really quite magical. Don't get distracted and don't worry too much about whether it looks good or not (good detail isn't visible under the safe-light anyway) just keep counting and gently rocking the solution. It won't hurt to occasionally use your tongs to push the picture to the bottom of the dish. Once again, some advice I received advised I ignore the developing instructions and remove the print after only 45 seconds which again, has been working out very well.
Use the tongs to remove the print from the developer, give it a quick shake to knock off a few drips and then fully submerge the print in the stop bath. This solution immediately stops the developing reaction. Again, you should rock the dish gently to keep the solution in motion and occasionally use the second pair of tongs to submerge it. I leave it in the stop bath for about a minute. Note - the stop bath instructions state this should be at 20 Celsius too, but I have ignored this and haven't suffered ill effects.
Use the second set of tongs to move from the stop bath to the fixer. The fixer removes any unexposed silver halide left in the paper and prevents any future fogging of the image - it stabilises the print for safe keeping. Again, one minute in the fixer will suffice. Note - like the stop bath, the fixer instructions state this should be at 20 Celsius too, but I have ignored this and haven't suffered ill effects. You should use your own judgement and not blindly follow what I do.
Now you can safely take the developed print out of the darkroom for a thorough rinse in cold water. Don't skimp this part. By rinsing in cold water you are removing all exhausted chemicals and preventing future image deterioration. A good five minutes for a small print should suffice.
You are then left with a wet, but hopefully (!) perfectly exposed negative image. It really is a wonderful feeling when you eventually get it right. I usually just let the print air dry but this can take a while so a hair dryer (not too hot!) will speed up the drying process. The final process (for me) is to scan the negative image with my very old (17 years and counting!) scanner at 2000 dpi and use my photo editing software to invert the image to finally give me a positive. I then set about the tremendously tedious task of removing dust and any little scratches that have found their way onto the print. Finally, and if it warrants it, I will print the final picture (via a lab; I don't own a printer).
I hope this conveys how simple this process can be, with the bare minimum of equipment and space. It really isn't beyond most and well, frankly there are worse things you could be doing with your time, alone, in a dark cupboard.
So there we are. A 100 year old camera given a new lease of life and not just a display piece on a shelf; returned to working life and taking pictures (from time to time). I will not be replacing my digital camera with this wee gem, but I will be digging it out from time to time when the bug bites. I hope you've enjoyed reading about this experiment and hopefully it'll give you some hints and tips if you ever wish to do something similar.
