Old Camera Question

[Jon Foster]

This is a tough one to ask/describe but I'll give it a shot anyhow.

Years ago, like 25 or more I had one of my grandpa's old camera's. I have no idea what it was but we're trying to find it (in storage boxes at my mothers house) right now. It was black and had two lenses on the front. It was rectangular in shape and stood on end. The top flipped up and forward so you could look down into the camera. The eye piece was huge, the hole inside of the top was a big eye piece. It had a flash that attached with two pins on the right side of the body and looked like a black C cell flashlight with a forward facing reflector. The flash bulbs were one use too. I guess it used film that was about 3 inches wide and came on small spools...

I know this is a long shot but does it sound familiar to anyone? When it was "put" away it still worked like a champ and I'd love to find it again and try to use it.

Thanks, Jon.

[cameraguy21773]

Originally Posted by Jon Foster

This is a tough one to ask/describe but I'll give it a shot anyhow.

Years ago, like 25 or more I had one of my grandpa's old camera's. I have no idea what it was but we're trying to find it (in storage boxes at my mothers house) right now. It was black and had two lenses on the front. It was rectangular in shape and stood on end. The top flipped up and forward so you could look down into the camera. The eye piece was huge, the hole inside of the top was a big eye piece. It had a flash that attached with two pins on the right side of the body and looked like a black C cell flashlight with a forward facing reflector. The flash bulbs were one use too. I guess it used film that was about 3 inches wide and came on small spools...

I know this is a long shot but does it sound familiar to anyone? When it was "put" away it still worked like a champ and I'd love to find it again and try to use it.

Thanks, Jon.

What you describe here is called a twin lens reflex (TLR). The better ones were made by Rollei, Mamiya, and Yashica. They were usually made to shoot on 120 or 620 and took 6x6cm images with smaller versions taking 4x4mm images. Some even allowed for inchangeable or add-on lenses.
There were many many models made. Collector and user value varies widely.

[dougjgreen]

These were a very common type of camera in the 1940s and 1950s and early 1960s. The best of them were the top end Rolleiflexes, but by no means were these the only brand of this type of camera. Excellent ones were made by Mamiya, Yashica, Minolta, Ricoh, Zeiss, Meopta and other brands as well. There are still some cheap models being made in less developed countries like China (Seagull) and Russia (Lubitel). The type was so ubiquitous in the 1950s that it was probably as common as the 35mm SLR was in the 1980s. Most of them used 120 or 220 6cm wide rollfilm, but some smaller models used 4 cm-wide 127 rollfilm. DON'T buy a new Seagull for $200 or so, when most used $100 or so Yashicas, Ricohs or Meoptas will blow away a Seagull in terms of image quality, due to better lenses, and better mechanical precision.

Nowadays, a top end used Rolleiflex with the right lens (a Zeiss Planar or Schneider Xenotar) will command $500-700 on the used market if it's in good enough condition, but perfectly useable ones with somewhat less legendary optics can be had for well under $100, from such brands as Yashica, Ricoh, Meopta, and Rolleicord. Note that most of these cameras don't have light meters, and the ones that do, often the meter is broken or out of alignment so you might be better served to use either an external hand-held meter or, what's known as the "Sunny 16 rule" to guess the proper exposure settings.

When properly maintained, the best of these cameras are still capable of delivering superb, pro-caliber results. One reason that those high-end Rolleiflexes still sell for over $500 is that some pros still use them for street scenics, portraiture, and candids, and they are still as good as any camera ever made for those applications. I happen to own five of them. Two of mine are pretty high-end,and I use them for serious work and two of them are tiny cameras that use scarce 127-size film. But I would be willing to sell the other one, a Yashica Model D, which has a Yashinon lens, for $60 plus shipping. It is actually a great camera to learn serious photographic technique with, and it's in fully working order.

[JohnC]

That sounds like a Kodak DuaFlex. It used "620" film. The flash attached on the rigt side of the camera (looking towards the camera) via two pins (actually a pin and a screw). It took two "C" cell batteries in the flash. The only difference is that the DuoFlex was brown.

There is a photo at
http://www.photoethnography.com/Clas...html~mainFrame
(it shows it with a 35mm roll of film for some reason or other).

John

[Jon Foster]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I looked at the pictured Kodak and it doesn't look like that. It's all black and the flash is on the other side. Both lenses look similar to the lower lens in the kodak version too. I think I remember a small pin with a slot on the end for a tiny standard screwdriver on the side of each lens also. The pin stuck out about 1/8" and was very thin. I remember thinking it looked like it would be easy to break.

Again, thanks for the help. If I can dig up the camera I'll post some pictures of it and any information I can find on it etc. I'd also like to take some pictures with it if possible. I remember telling an old teacher about it but never took it in for him to see. He was also the teacher that introduced me to large format film work which I did for a good 4 years... Ah, the good old days!

Jon.