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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Kodak Vest Pocket Autographic

Check out the new arrival, a Kodak "Vest Pocket" camera.  This is the "Autographic" style, which means there's a small door on the back, that you can flip open and write directly on the film backing (possibly score, instead, not sure yet).  It takes 127 film, and I've loaded a roll of the Efke R 100, black and white.

It's totally adorable .. the whole thing collapses down flat, so it can fit in your vest pocket.  For a time, it was sold as the "soldier's camera," because it was so portable.  Also, one of these seems to've gone to the top of Mt. Everest.

They were probably manufactured between 1915 and 1926.  Mine has all sorts of lists of the patents that it's covered under, and one of them is from Nov 8, 1921.  So I'm squarely between world wars.  (i.e. not much market for soldiers.)

Exposure is going to be interesting.  The pre-set shutter speeds are a twenty-fifth or fiftieth of a second.  There's a B setting.  The aperture isn't listed in f-stops tho .. a dial sets it between "portrait" and "clouds" sizes.  I'm shooting this first roll using the smallest aperture (clouds) and the fiftieth of a second shutter .. in bright sunlight.  I'll try some B shots, as well.  I love science (physics?) experiments!

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