Sunday, October 31, 2010

Brownie 127 Kids

So we had this old 65mm Mamiya C330 twin lens just lying around and I had this idea to find a vintage camera lens to replace the bottom lens with and see what we could come up with. The trouble was finding a 65mm lens on an old vintage camera that would project 6x6. As it turns out, the only lens I could find was from an old Brownie 127 camera. These cute old cameras came with a 65mm f/14 single element lens with fixed focus. I found one on eBay, hacked off the lens, removed the elements from our Mamiya lens and replaced them with the brownie. The lens actually had to be fitted well behind the shutter and aperture blades so the Mamiya aperture serves as a cool vignetting tool. I ground out the aperture of the Brownie to f/5.6, calibrated the focus and ran a roll through it. The result... Interchangeable toy camera lens with leaf shutter and bellows focussing! Check it!

Kids Play Hollywood & Highland
Kids Play Hollywood & Highland

So what do you think?

5 comments:

  1. Oh yeah that is nuts!! you guys rock.. love it.

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  2. That is the most awesome thing I can imagine. Pimp my Mamiya! We need pics of the lens.

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  3. I love that you guys play and get nerdy and stuff with old cameras, meanwhile (presumably) making a living for yourselves with film-based photography. I dived deep down the rabbit hole of alt-photography when it was a hobby, only to put aside most of it when I decided to make it a career. Now I'm coming around to my 'roots' again, a little bit at a time.

    Very nice images! The vignette gets a little old after awhile…would be nice if it wasn't so severe. But for the occasional image it's a treat.

    Now if someone could tell me where the heck the new Kodak Portra 400 is??!

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  4. I love it!
    My great-grandpa used to take a brownie everywhere

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  5. Thanks! :)

    Just got done making a few more modifications on this lens. Ground out the barrel to cut back on the vignette. I think we will be using it a lot in the future!

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