Once upon a time, a number of years ago, I had inspired to leave the IT world and become a professional photographer. Now, for a number of reasons, that never happened, but I do consider the time and energy I put into it as well spent; to this day I have a love of the art of photography and, just as importantly, a strong love and appreciation for the technology that goes into photography.
So, today, being National Camera Day in the US, I felt it would be appropriate to share some of that technology that currently sits in my collection. To begin, here is the oldest camera that I own, an old Kodak Brownie.
This is, in fact, the Kodak Model D, and was the second antique camera I had ever obtained. I've shared this one before, and I still love it. It needs some TLC, needs to be cleaned, but is still fascinating.
Now this Kodak Brownie was actually the first antique camera I had bought. It was made in the 1940's and is really little more than a camera obscura with film loaded into the back.
Another Brownie in my collection, the Six-16 has a really need shape to it; it is wedged shaped instead of box shaped, which I'm sure helped the light entering through the aperture to not bounce around so much. The Six-16 is actually an older model than the Six-20 above. It's a brick. I could drop it and it would probably just land with a thud.
Now this is a fun camera. The Balda Baldinette was a West German camera from the 1950's. It's compact enough to fit in a pocket, yet still has bellows to make it look Really Damn Bad Ass.
Fun fact: this little tab that is so prominent on the front of many of these bellow cameras actually has a purpose, to stand the camera up in portrait mode:
Now you know.
The last camera I'll show right now is the newest in my collection: The Polaroid Land Camera Model 95. I found this at an antique store just the other day for $20. It, too, has the tab on the front to hold the camera steady.
Some other interesting facts about this camera:
This is an instant camera, so normal film cannot be dropped into it to work. I have found a very old, expired box of film that will fit this camera on eBay. It must be nearly as old as the camera itself, but I have bought it and will load it after I receive it. Hopefully the film won't be too far gone.
Happy National Camera Day!
