Kodak Tourist, f/4.5 105mm Anaston Lens Model (1948-1951)

The Kodak Tourist is a folding camera that was made in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY. It followed the Kodak Monitor and Vigilant models, and preceded the Kodak Tourist II. This model with a coated f/4.5 105 mm Kodak Anaston lens in a Kodak Flash Kodamatic shutter was made some time from 1948 to 1951. The camera normally makes eight 2-1/4" x 3-1/4" pictures on one roll of size 620 film; the back is removable and could be replaced with an adapter back that permitted the use of Kodak Bantam size 828 film for Kodachrome slides. Size 620 film was discontinued years ago. Today you would need to use 120 film respooled onto a 620 spool. Size 828 film also is long gone and all sizes of Kodachrome were discontinued in 2009. The Anaston lens is similar to the earlier Kodak Anastigmat lens used in the Vigilants and Monitors. It has four elements in three groups and is a front cell focuser - the lens is focused by turning the front lens cell to vary the internal spacing between lens elements. The lens focuses from 3.5 ft. to infinity. There is an accessory shoe on the top of the camera for a range finder to measure distances. Without a range finder the photographer relies on estimated distances and depth of field to get a sharp picture. The shutter runs from 1/10th to 1/200th of a second plus bulb and time and synchronizes with flash bulbs at 1/25th of a second. An exposure calculator for Kodak films popular at the time is provided on the camera back. You advance the film using the winding knob on the top of the camera and space the pictures on the film by looking through the little red window at the numbers printed on the backing paper. The list price in 1950 was $71, which is roughly $760 in depreciated 2018 dollars.

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Folding cameras allowed a large negative in a compact - when folded - package. For many years, ever since the No. 2 Brownie camera of 1901, home snapshots were most commonly taken with cameras using size 120 or 620 roll film to produce negatives that could be contact printed to make 2-1/4" by 3-1/4" album size prints. Eventually film improved enough to make large prints from small negatives possible and 35 mm film became the most popular size.

[Update] This example turned out to have pinholes in the bellows, which is not uncommon as the rubberized fabric dries out with age. I will need to patch the holes with dabs of "liquid electrical tape" in order to use this camera to take pictures.

Kodak Motormatic 35 (1960-1962)

The Kodak Motormatic 35 is a fancier version of the Kodak Automatic 35. The differences from the Automatic 35 include a spring-wound film advance, more shutter speeds and guide number aperture settings for flash. The original Motormatic used a pin-and-screw flasholder. Later versions had built-in sockets for either AG-1 flash bulbs (Motormatic 35F) or flash cubes (Motormatic 35R4) and dropped the manual aperture settings. The original Motormatic 35 was produced from 1960 to 1962. The 35R4, the last 35mm made in the USA, was produced from 1965 to 1969. Kodak produced only cartridge loading cameras (Instamatic and Pocket Instamatic) in the US after 1969.

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 The Motormatic 35 has a coated f/2.8-32 44mm Kodak Ektanar lens, focusing from 3 ft. to infinity, in a Kodak Automatic Flash Shutter that has speeds of 1/40, 1/80, 1/125 and 1/250 second. The lens has three elements and is made using glass containing thorium dioxide, making it slightly radioactive. The levels are low enough to produce no health risk. The shutter syncs with flash bulbs at 1/40 second. The shutter and lens can be set to use flash guide numbers from 35 to 340 by depressing a catch on the rim of the shutter and setting an index next to the guide number. This causes the aperture to be set to the correct value for the distance the lens is focused. When the shutter is set for daylight exposures the aperture is set by the built-in light meter or set manually by moving a catch to the right of the eyepiece and turning a wheel under the eyepiece.

The light meter uses a selenium cell and does not need a battery. The meter can be set for ASA film speeds from 10 to 800. To avoid overexposure the shutter speed setting and film speed setting interact to limit the shutter speed to a range the meter can work with. For example, when the film speed is set to 800 the shutter speed can only be set to 1/250. ASA 160 is the fastest film speed you can set and still use 1/40 (the slowest) shutter speed. To avoid underexposure a low light flag appears in the lower left of the viewfinder. The meter sets the aperture by a trap needle system. The selenium cell is connected to a galvanometer on the top of the camera. When the aperture setting is on automatic pressing the shutter release sets the aperture in response to the movement of the needle. The aperture also can be set manually on the original Motormatic 35. The 35F and 35R4 lack the manual aperture feature.

The film advances with every press of the shutter release using a spring motor wound by a knob on the bottom of the camera. The photographer can rewind the film by pressing a release lever on the front of the camera and turning a knob on the top of the camera. The spring driven motor originally provided 10 exposures. The photographer will need to wind up the motor a few times before the roll of film is finished. Age has reduced the capacity of the spring motor on mine and I only get about four pictures before I need to wind up again. The rewind lever also allows the photographer to release the tension on the spring motor in order to take a picture without automatically (and noisily) advancing the film after the exposure. The photographer can wind up the motor when it is convenient to get ready for the next picture.

The viewfinder has bright frame lines and shows whether the lens is focused for close-ups, groups or scenes. A warning appears when the aperture is on a manual setting. This camera is a scale focuser. You need to estimate or measure the distance to your subject, then set the distance using the scale on the lens. The camera originally came with exposure cards that fit a holder on the back and provided instructions for setting the camera for different Kodak films. The back of the camera also reminded you to use Kodak film and to rewind the film promptly. This was marketed as a camera for color slides of the family. The list price in 1960 was $109.50 ($942 in depreciated 2018 dollars), making this camera a significant purchase.

Ansco Automatic Reflex (1947-1952)

The Ansco Automatic Reflex was a decent twin lens reflex camera that too few people wanted to buy. Ansco made possibly 10,000 of them from 1947 to 1952. My camera has a stamp inside for September, 1947, and a serial number of 0001951, making it one of the first off the assembly line. The list price in 1947 was a whopping $275 (more than $3,000 in depreciated 2018 dollars). The camera cost as much as a Rolleiflex, which was the better camera. The list price was reduced to $145 by 1950, but that did not help sales enough to keep the camera in production much longer.

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Use Ansco Film!

The camera has an f/3.5-32 83mm Anastigmat triplet taking lens made by Wollensak (Rochester, NY) in a Wollensak Rapax shutter. Shutter speeds are 1 second to 1/400 second plus bulb. The shutter is set by the lever to the left of the lens and released by the lever to the right of the lens. The shutter speeds are set using a rim around the taking lens and the settings are visible from the top of the camera. The lens aperture is set with a lever on the bottom of the taking lens and the aperture settings are visible in a small window on the top of the camera. A cable release socket is on the top of the camera. This example is not synchronized for flash. A built-in flash synchronizer was to come later in the production run. The camera has a normal twin lens reflex ground glass screen on the top and a focusing knob on the left. The focusing screen does not have a fresnel field lens. The distance scale on the focusing knob is visible from the top of the camera. A reverse galilean viewfinder is built into the reflex finder hood. The film is advanced by a crank on the right. The exposure counter is located near the crank. The photographer lines up the first exposure by looking at the number printed on the backing paper through the red window at the back of the camera and then sets the film counter. A turn of the crank advances the film for the next picture and increments the exposure counter. The camera has an interlock between the shutter and the film advance to prevent double exposures. A small lever near the exposure counter resets the interlock in case a deliberate double exposure is needed or the mechanism has hung up and needs to be reset. There is a depth of field scale on the back. The body is die-cast aluminum with leather covering. The camera uses 120 film, which is still available today, and takes 12 2-1/4" square pictures on a roll of film. The camera has a nice set of features that should have come with a better price.