Overview
and Personal Commentsby Karen Nakamura
Overview
and Personal CommentsOK, so as I said on my Retina page, I'd like to get my collecting biases on the table: I hate Kodaks!
But there's one Kodak camera that is so ugly... that you can only be charmed by it.
It sort of reminds me of Bauhaus meets Japanese-robot-animation (mecha). The Kodak 35 Rangefinder has an odd bulbous growth on the front that hides the RF coupling. It looks like it was stuck there as an afterthought.
This isn't too far from the truth. The original Kodak 35 was designed to compete with the Argus A series, but in 1938 Argus came out with their wonderful brick shaped Argus C series with a coupled-rangefinder. Kodak scrambled to add an RF and glommed on a RF to their bakelite model.
This camera was pure Made in USA technology and ingenuity. Unlike the Retina series, which is/was Teutonic to its roots and aimed for quality regardless of cost, the 35 RF was designed for the masses and for low cost. Instead of machined brass and steel, we have stamped alloy and cast bakelite.
A sticker on the inside of the camera admonishes the user to only use Kodak film, and gives patent dates of 1938, 1940, and 1942. It has the same shiny film pressure plate as found on the Bolsey cameras. This means that you should only use negative (B&W or color) film with these cameras and not chrome positives (slide film) which does not come with an anti-halation layer. Infrared film will also act very funny, creating a literal mirror-image.
That
thing on the top of the camera and that looks for all purposes like a shutter
button? That's not a shutter button. That's the wind-on interlock. To take a
photo, assuming the camera is not wound:
Now, this camera has a focusing knob on the front left of the camera that really serves no purpose except to ape the Argus 'C' camera it was competing against (or perhaps in concept, the Zeiss Contax camera).
The shutter advertises that it's flash compatible, but it uses a proprietary system that isn't compatible with current flash units (unless you can find the rare adaptor somehow).
OK, so the camera looks like your typical leatherette covered brass or alloy, right? Nope! The black portion of the camera is actually bakelite. You can tell when you look at the strap lugs, which are molded bakelite.
| Camera
Name |
35 |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer |
Kodak |
| Place
of Manufacture |
USA |
| Date
of Manufacture |
1940-48 My camera's serial number is EO6121x, this means that it was built in 1946 using the table from ClassicCamera |
| Focusing
System |
Coupled
split-image rangefinder |
| Lens |
Kodak
Anastigmat Special 50mm f/3.5 (type unknown) |
| Shutter |
"Flash Kodamatic Shutter" leaf (in-lens) shutter 1/10 - 1/200 |
| Metering
System |
n/a |
| Apertures |
f/3.5 - f/16 |
| Flash |
Proprietary external flash connection |
| Film
type / speeds |
Standard 135 (35mm) film 24x36 gate |
| Battery
type |
n/a |
| Dimensions
and weight |
24 oz (680g) |
| Retail
price |
$48 (1940) |
Let me get something straight: Kodak was never about high quality photography. George Eastman wanted to make photography available for the masses, to put a camera in every hand. Previously, photography was a messy, icky affair with wet chemistry glass plates that had to be coated before each exposure and processed immediately in a darkroom tent. You literally needed your own pack mule to take photos anywhere.
Kodak developed the technique of putting film emulsion onto a thin flexible backing and thus developed the first roll film. Kodak also gave us the numbering system (Type 135 for 35mm film; Type120/220 for medium format roll film, etc.). Originally, 35mm film was designed solely for motion picture usage. It was Oscar Barnack's brilliant idea to use it for still photography that led to the Leica, and the development of 35mm miniature cameras.
Despite the fact that I'm a technical snob and wouldn't use (or touch!) any Kodak camera except a Nagel-type Retina and a film snob so the only Kodak film I use is Tri-X (I'm Fuji Film all the way otherwise), I do have to credit Kodak (and Leica) with making photography available to everyone. Otherwise, we'd all still be hauling heavy glass plate cameras around on our pack mules. If you think your SUV gets bad mileage! ...
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