Thursday, February 19, 2026

An Old Favorite

I put a roll of Kentmere 100 through my Kodak Reflex II over a couple days.  It is one of those cameras for which I have a particular fondness because I was able to do a complete cleaning and adjustment without destroying it.  The reason for that is that the Reflex II is rather simple in its construction compared to my other tlr cameras.  The linked gear lenses are largely responsible for that simplicity.  

The pictures from this roll were artistically unremarkable, but I was happy with getting decent tonal results in combination with a fresh kit of PMK Pyro. 

The shot of my friend, Bob, was made in the dark corner of a coffee shop at 1/25 and f:3.5.  I was slightly off on the focus, but still pleased to get anything under those conditions.

 

It was a noteworthy accomplishment for Kodak to produce a full featured twin lens reflex at an affordable price in 1948.  The coated Anastar lens is very sharp and the viewfinder is as bright as anything made in those days.
 

f you have a Reflex II that needs some cleaning up, Rick Oleson's Tech Notes are free to download.

2 comments:

Jim Grey said...

Every time you post images from this camera I want to buy one.

Mike said...

About the only criticism I've seen of the Reflex II is the fact that it uses 620 film. Of course, that is true of any of the old Kodaks except the earliest ones, and it is not really a great difficulty to re-roll from 120 or just trim the reels a bit.