Milsurp After Hours

I saw this site online where a guy buys old cameras and takes pictures with them and posts about what the experience was like with each one as well as showing a sample of the photo results. https://www.flickr.com/photos/radiorips ... otostream/

I saw some pretty good photos with a Brownie Hawkeye using 120 film in a 620 camera. So... I found one that cost about as much as it did to ship it on ebay. Got it today. It had been stored in a garage for years. The shutter was having a hard time firing and it was pretty dirty. I cleaned it up and worked on the shutter a bit with some contact cleaner. Now it's ready for a trial run. Just have to get some more 120 film.

Very cool, my family had one of those when I was a kid. I remember looking down
into the viewfinder and pushing down on the grooved gray button, then cranking
the knob to see the next number on the film, through a round red transparent piece
of plastic...........
But I sure never took it apart like you did, my Dad would have killed me........

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Taking it apart and putting it back together again was something I....almost... did right. I managed to reverse the lens. Some people do it on purpose for the strange photo effect. I wasn't. There is a narrow window of almost sharp surrounded by blur in the resulting photo images. I got it put back right now. Have to try it again soon.

Yesterday when I had nothing more exciting to do I loaded up the Brownie again with film. I wanted to see how good a picture it would take with the lens put in right side out. I went down to a local park and shot a dozen photos....the entire roll. And... it worked just fine. Considering one shutter speed and one lens F stop...of whatever it is, it did good. Also considering my developing exactitude as to chemical temperature and exact chemical bath times was ....less than professional.

The worse part of developing 120 film is getting the film on the developing reel by touch in a film loading bag. I managed to bend the film a few places but no serious problem.

These are images from scans with only the gamma correction touched a bit. I didn't do anything to the sharpness so you can see it took pretty good photos.

I was taking these photos in the middle of the day and the sun was pretty bright and you can see a little reflection on the lens evidence in a photo or two of the bunch.

My next experiment is a more sophisticated Ciro-Flex duo lens reflex 120 film camera. It has a few F stops and shutter speeds and an adjustable focus. No built in light meter though.

Good results Robert

Knowing a little (but not much) more about steam locomotives than photography,
that is a Baldwin 4-8-2 that was built in 1926 for the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway "Frisco".
Here is a photo of it in it's working days and a color one as Robert saw it.
My question is, who thought it was a good idea to add the red and white paint.......
Oh well, at least someone is keeping it from rusting.

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You discovered more about that train than I ever knew, Vern. That train has been behind that fence in the park for probably fifty years. I took a photo of it with a 35mm SLR a few weeks ago when I was trying one of them out that I got off of ebay. The train could use a little freshening up.

I have been following the movement by Union Pacific of the big boy 4014 for restoration over the past few months. It seemed to attract quite an audience along the way. I have watched the UP film Last of the Giants on you tube about the big boys and challangers. I found it very interesting to see these old engines in operation pulling trains that never seemed to end. I am looking forward to seeing 4014 in steam again in a few years time when it is restored.

Regards
Peter.

The Big Boys really lived up to their name, they were just about the ultimate in steam locos.
The 4014 made it to Cheyenne, WY a month ago today and will be restored there. The only
big change will be conversion from coal to oil burning.
My interest comes from the engineer in the cab window, my grandfather. The Big Boy weighs
in at 762,000 lbs., my grandfather's Baldwin 2-6-6-2 "only" weighed 275,000 lbs........

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