The 620 Brownie Junior - UK Model.

[smithdan]

A friend who lives in England found this one in a thrift shop. She thought that its canvas carry case looked cute and picked it up for me.

This one's a lot smaller than other boxes from the mid to late 1930's. Here it is along side an Ensign from around the same time. Placing the lens in front of the shutter and probably making it more refractive shortens the lens to film distance and its overall length.

The case and inside bits are metal. this one had lots of surface rust which cleaned up not too badly. The shiny stuff inside the viewfinders was dull making aiming a bit difficult.

Respooled some FP4, taped it up real good especially over the red window and headed off to a small town South of here that has some interesting early 20th century architecture.

Found this one to have a healthy dose of "Brownie softness" and also that camera movement was harder to control working the shutter on this one compared to some of my other boxes. All eight frames were acceptable, here's the six best, other two are over on timor's lo - fi thread.
The camera is fixed at around f11, shutter a tired 1/50 sec. Ilford FP4 in D76 1:1.

 

[webestang64]

Nice piece. Pics look great.

 

[Original katomi]

Given the age, it’s doing well. Is that light leaking on the edges.
Can’t think that many of today’s DSLR,s will still be going when they are as old

 

[Original katomi]

Just out of interest,
When I used to use fp4 it was 125 asa I pulled it to 100 asa what is it now and at what speed do you use it

 

[Derrel]

Cool photos.

 

[webestang64]

what is it now

FP4 has always been 125. Early 620 Verichrome pan (film when camera was new) was 125 as well......although very early V-Pan was 80. I've shot 200 C-41 in these types of cameras as well and it comes out a bit over but it helps with color saturation.

 

[Original katomi]

Ok thanks, I don’t do film now. I was very hands on and in. And I ended up poisoning my self from having hands in the Chem,s. Ok recovered at the time and left photography when I came back to photography the digital era had started so I went that route, still some of my film methods have carried into digital
Silly things like holding the lens so fingers can work focus, carrying extra batteries and mem cards.
I used to use bulk roles of film, 5m rolls and wind my one spools. Even had a Mexican style sash that held cans of film.
Now I just carry lots of sd cards and batteries.

 

[smithdan]

Given the age, it’s doing well. Is that light leaking on the edges.
Can’t think that many of today’s DSLR,s will still be going when they are as old

Nothing much to break on these oldies. the shutter gets slower due to most likely some corrosion and tired springs.

The light leakage along one side is from the little red film frame # window. Kodak's Varichrome Safety was an orthochromatic film and so not very sensitive to red. Varichrome Pan (panchromatic) replaced it in '56 so it and most BW films since will ignore the red filter, especially this one which is very faint. I tape it over and try to wind on in the shade but..

When I use FP4 in an adjustable camera I shoot at box speed of 125. On these fixed aperture crocks if it's bright I'll sometimes use a yellow filter or pull one stop. FP4 is quite forgiving latitude wise as well.