Kodak Six-20 Brownie
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:15 pm
Kodak Six-20 Brownie Junior. I got it with a bundled group recently for next to nothing. Figuring the SLR and two universal screw mount lenses that came with it probably cost me $5 at most.
The Six-20, was made between 1932 and 1942. Some say Brownie Junior under the lens and some don’t for some strange reason. It uses a simple meniscus lens and has two apertures of about F16 and F11 as well as a B mode. The shutter is a cheap spring and maybe is about a 40th of a second. Two finders, one horizontal and one vertical are for aiming, except on mine they were pretty useless. It uses 620 film and I had to rewind some 120 on to a couple of spindles of the right size. It takes big negatives of 2 ¼ by 3 ¼ which give you eight shots on one roll of film.
I only had some 400 film and the camera was made for film under less than a quarter of that speed and so I just pulled out the lever on top and shot away. The shutter lever will take a photo with a down stroke for one image and an up stroke for the next exposure. With the top lever down it is shooting in the wider aperture and with it up shooting in the smaller aperture. If you pull out a side lever it will do Bulb shots.
There is no way to mount it to a tripod so a little shake in the exposure is pretty likely.
I wasn’t looking for any great subjects. Just shooting whenever the notion struck…including at a traffic light.
All things considered, for a simple camera that is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years old with a wire spring for the shutter it was above expectation.
It’s smaller than the Brownie 16 which doesn’t shoot 620 film.
The Six-20, was made between 1932 and 1942. Some say Brownie Junior under the lens and some don’t for some strange reason. It uses a simple meniscus lens and has two apertures of about F16 and F11 as well as a B mode. The shutter is a cheap spring and maybe is about a 40th of a second. Two finders, one horizontal and one vertical are for aiming, except on mine they were pretty useless. It uses 620 film and I had to rewind some 120 on to a couple of spindles of the right size. It takes big negatives of 2 ¼ by 3 ¼ which give you eight shots on one roll of film.
I only had some 400 film and the camera was made for film under less than a quarter of that speed and so I just pulled out the lever on top and shot away. The shutter lever will take a photo with a down stroke for one image and an up stroke for the next exposure. With the top lever down it is shooting in the wider aperture and with it up shooting in the smaller aperture. If you pull out a side lever it will do Bulb shots.
There is no way to mount it to a tripod so a little shake in the exposure is pretty likely.
I wasn’t looking for any great subjects. Just shooting whenever the notion struck…including at a traffic light.
All things considered, for a simple camera that is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years old with a wire spring for the shutter it was above expectation.
It’s smaller than the Brownie 16 which doesn’t shoot 620 film.