New rotating photo

Between heavy clouds and rainshowers I managed to photograph my No. 4 Folding Kodak for the purpose of making a new photosynth. Here it is.


This is a very early example with serial number 77. If you rotate the photo until you can peek into the back, you can zoom in to see the number. Also notice that there is no key or knob in the top lid. All the other Folding Kodaks I have seen have a key or knob on top. I think that only the very first cameras don't have a key on the lid and that soon after introduction of this model, it was changed.

Rare Kamaret camera

There's another interesting and historical important camera on eBay just now. It's a Kamaret from 1891. This camera is the first one with the front roll design, meaning that the spools for the film were not placed behing the plane of the image, but in front of it, just behind the lenspanel. This way the camera could be 30% shorter than the contemporary No. 4 Kodak, which took the same size of photos. It was a major innovation in camera construction.
It would be a nice addition to any collection of antique cameras.

The naked No. 4 Folding Kodet Special of a few days ago went for $ 141, not to much for such a rare camera. But it needs new leather and that will not be very simple to find. The C Daylight with roll holder went for $ 450. Also not much if you consider the rarity. But prices have dropped quite a bit during the last years. Very nice if you collect for the joy of it, like I do.

Photosynth

In Photographica World 2010 no 3 John Marriage writes about Photosynth, a way to create multi perspective views of a scenery or object. I had to try it and so I took my No. 3 Folding Kodet, put it on a tripod and shot 50 photos from all angles. After uploading them I had created my first Synth. Have a look for yourself (It seems to work with Windows only):

A busy day

Today I have shot a film of my newest camera, the C Daylight, and added it to my website together with a description.

Also I took some pictures of my collection and mailed them to the webshop were you can buy all kinds of old fashioned brass screws. I think they will appear on the customers page of that site.
There are a couple of fine old Kodaks at eBay at the moment: a No. 4 Folding Kodak, a No. 4 Folding Kodet Special with the leather gone, and a C Daylight with roll film back. I wonder what the Kodet will end at. Only 8 hours to go.

C Daylight

Here's a photo of my C Daylight with plate back. The two finders are a replacement which I made myself. I took the construction and size from my C Ordinary. I think they look quite well.

I'm still waiting for the string to arrive. By the way, the little brass screws to attache the finders with I bought at a screw webshop in Eindhoven http://www.mooischroefje.nl/. They have all kinds of brass screws and if you want to restore a old camera you should have a look at their site.

Today 2 square feet of morroco grain black leather arrived, which I have bought. Alas the grain does not fit the old No. 4 Folding Kodet Junior I want to restore. So the search for the right leather continues.

The first message in this blog

Why this blog? Just for the fun of it. For my work I had to learn how to write a blog and I liked it so much that now I have started a private one.
My blog is about collecting antique Kodak cameras, and, if I find it interesting enough, about all other photographica. So, what am I doing today? Most interesting is that I am fixing a C Daylight Kodak that I have bought at an auction in Melbourne a few weeks ago. Its pull string is broken and now I am looking for a gut string to replace it. Searching the internet I found a shop that sells strings for musical instrument. One of the ladies there is a cello player and she is going to send me a used string from her cello. Nice, isnt it? It saves me about € 100 for a set of new strings.
Next time I try to put up a photo of the Daylight camera here.