The Kodak 35RF

smithdan · Jan 22, 2014

Called downright ugly by some, this overweight late 40's doorstop certainly looks as if it was designed by a committee.

But carefully dismantle this critter, clean it up real nice, stuff a roll of HP5 inside and with a bit of care and attention it comes up with this:

and these:

dxqcanada · Jan 22, 2014

Yup, ugly ... but the IQ looks pretty good.
Any of these shot wide open ?

smithdan · Jan 22, 2014

dxqcanada said:
Yup, ugly ... but the IQ looks pretty good.
Any of these shot wide open ?

nope, all @ 8-11 and 1/100.

avraam · Sep 26, 2014

1 the best exposition) hipstacamera

desertrattm2r12 · Dec 14, 2015

I love the Kodak 35, I have three of them. butt ugly but loveable. Kodak wanted a camera to replace the Leicas this country was not getting because of world War II so they took a scale focus camera and added a rangefinder and enough knobs and projections and whatchamacallits for a witch's face. They say it offered more lenses than the Leica.

Derrel · Dec 14, 2015

I took my little brother's Kodak 35 apart when I was a kid, and never could get it re-assembled 100 percent properly...

compur · Dec 16, 2015

The Kodak "Anastar" is a very good lens. Comparable to Kodak's top of the line Ektars and the Zeiss Tessar lenses found on many German RF cameras of the era. The "L" in circle mark means the lens is "Luminized," Kodak's name for their lens coating process. So, it is coated -- another plus.

smithdan · Dec 16, 2015

Derrel said:
I took my little brother's Kodak 35 apart when I was a kid, and never could get it re-assembled 100 percent properly...

Had this one apart enough to clean the bleary (and really small) rangefinder stuff. Too scared to get more ambitious as it likes to eat sprocket holes as well. About time to take this one out again, surprisingly sharp lens for a mid grade Kodak.

..your post reminds me of this..

Billy gets a big $hitty on for his sister and trashes her Holiday.

smithdan · Dec 16, 2015

compur said:
The Kodak "Anastar" is a very good lens. Comparable to Kodak's top of the line Ektars and the Zeiss Tessar lenses found on many German RF cameras of the era. The "L" in circle mark means the lens is "Luminized," Kodak's name for their lens coating process. So, it is coated -- another plus.

Great, I'll treat it to a roll of colour next outing.

unpopular · Feb 16, 2016

it seems interesting that a clearly very capable camera such as this is delegated to "alternative techniques" by virtue of age alone....

smithdan · Feb 17, 2016

unpopular said:
it seems interesting that a clearly very capable camera such as this is delegated to "alternative techniques" by virtue of age alone....

I'll take the blame for this.

Started putting pix from my old crocks here because of the "using a classic film camera" line in the section description. After being corrected I have since posted stuff like this in"Collector's Corner". This was an old thread that got resurrected in late 2015.

..and yes, a very capable camera with a surprisingly sharp lens.

Streets · Feb 19, 2016

Back in 1959 I got my hands on a Kodak Ektra with 35, 50,&135mm lenses. The 50mm was a bit soft but the other two produced results similar to the Leica Summitar on my 3G. It had a curtain shutter which was a weak point. I have some slides made with it in the late fifties and will attempt to copy a couple and submit the results on this forum.