Back in late June, with only days remaining before my employer closed the local office, thrusting all of us into work-from-home status, a coworker and a former boss cleaned the cameras out of their closets and brought them to me. From the former boss, a Casio Exilim S20 (2 megapixel, fixed lens digital camera from 2003) and an Olympus Infinity II (reviews in progress/forthcoming); from the coworker, a huge basket full of her Dad’s Brownies!
Yum!
The basket included, in no particular order:
- Kodak Hawkeye Flashfun (127, mold on the taking lens)
- Kodak Handle (Instant, defunct)
- Kodak Medalion 8 (8mm, takes special cartridges, defunct)
- Kodak Starlet with a flash (127, mold on the taking lens)
- Miranda Sensoret and flash (35mm, film advance frozen)
- an Ansco folder (120, completely degraded bellows, broken release)
- 2 Brownie Reflex Synchros (one with a frozen shutter; the other missing the mirror)
- Kodak Starflex with a big honking flash (127, faulty shutter)
- Kodak Automatic 35 (35mm)
- some random filters and flashbulbs
- Kodak Instamatic M5 (8mm, takes special cartridges, defunct)
I gave them all a good once over, then donated almost everything to the local Goodwill. Despite appearances to the contrary, I’m a camera user, not a camera collector.
I kept the flash from the Miranda, the Brownie Starflex and flash from the Starlet, the Mirror from the Reflex with the broken shutter, and the Reflex with the working shutter but no mirror, the box from the Instamatic M5 (it has a great design, and it’s just about perfect for holding Polaroid 600 shots), the Kodak Automatic 35, and the flashbulbs and filters, and I’ve been having fun with them. I made one working Reflex Synchro and put rolls of hand-cut Ektar though it and the Starflex, and put rolls through the Automatic 35 and Infinity II, and reviews are all forthcoming, eventually.
Much thanks to Elizabeth and Dan for thinking of me!
