Kodak Six-20 Brownie

The Six-20 Brownie camera was made from 1933 to 1941 and originally listed for $2.50. The price had gone up to $2.85 by the time it was discontinued. The first Brownie came out in 1900 and the last in 1980, putting this model about the middle of the long line of around 100 different simple cameras named Brownie. I haven't seen a record of how many Six-20 Brownies were made, but the answer probably is a million or more. The "Diway" lens has a negative meniscus lens in front of the shutter and a positive meniscus lens behind the shutter. The effective focal length is about 4 inches. The front lens can be swung out of the way to take a picture of a subject 5 to 10 feet away. With the front lens in place, the photographer can take a picture of a subject 10 feet or farther away. Ten feet is about the right distance for a full-length portrait. For close-ups the photographer could get a portrait lens attachment to take a picture of a subject 3-1/2 ft away, which is about the right distance for a full-face portrait. A slide on the top lets the photographer set the aperture to roughly f/11 with the slide in or f/16 with the slide out. The shutter speed was about 1/25th to 1/50th of a second when the camera was new. It is hard to guess what the speed of the 80 year old shutter is now. A slide on the side can be pulled out to let the photographer make a time exposure. There is no tripod socket, so the photographer would need to find a steady table or some other support for the camera to make a time exposure. The finder on the top is for portrait-oriented pictures; the finder on the side, for landscape-oriented pictures. The picture size is 2-1/4" by 3-1/4". When the camera was new, pictures usually were contact printed to make album size prints. It was uncommon to enlarge family snapshots. The photographer holds the camera in both hands against the body to steady it and moves the shutter release with the thumb. It just takes one movement to make an exposure. The pictures are spaced on the film by looking through the little red window at the numbers printed on the backing paper of the film. 620 film is no longer available, but currently made 120 film can be re-spooled onto 620 spools. Slower film, ISO 100 or less, would be best for outdoor pictures.

Front

Back

The Cone

To see that it is the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture, look up the story about John J. Loughlin and his Brownie on page 32 of the April, 1944, issue of Popular Photography (on line at books.google.com).

En Plein Air

This old camera can still take a picture. The subject was a painter at work in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee. The film used was Ilford XP2 Plus, which is rated at ISO 400, but which Ilford claims can be exposed from ISO 50 to ISO 800 and still give usable negatives.