Monday, December 22, 2008

Flipped Lens

Old Town Albuquerque







I have four Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash Cameras. One was a gift from Diwan Bhathal, who added a cable release socket and a tripod bushing, greatly enhancing the capabilities of the simple camera. The last one I acquired cost me five bucks at a garage sale; I was hoping the old roll of film it contained would have some ancient latent images, but it was blank. I decided to clean up the camera, and I flipped the single meniscus lens in its mount to produce the effects seen in the above photographs. The surprising sharpness normally delivered by the lens is retained in the center of the image, but the borders take on the blurred look demonstrated here. Some more conventional shots made earlier with the other cameras are on a page at my web site.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike,
Great idea! I have a Hawkeye and love it but was wondering how to modify for similar soft-focus effect. This is much better than my idea of drilling open the aperture wider (somehow--never figured that out and it would be non-reversible anyway).
--Micah in NC

Anonymous said...

Hi Mike,
Loved your write up about the brownie hawkeye!
Shoot an email to randy@holgamods.com and I'll shoot you a few photos of the Hawkeyes I have been restoring and adding a cable release and a tripod mount.