Kodak 35

I picked up another Kodak 35 recently on ebay.  I have another very similar, but this one has some interesting differences and is likely the first model which Kodak made in 1938.  

The most obvious difference in this early model is a frame with rollers which holds the film down over the film transport sprockets which both activate the film counter and cock the shutter.  Later models dispensed with the frame, but they all had a tendency to chew up the film strip along the edges.  After I cleaned up this one it seemed to be operating pretty smoothly, but it did tear out a couple edge perforations and caused some difficulties in loading the film on the developing reel leading to the loss of several frames. 

The pictures I got from the camera showed the Kodamatic shutter and the Anastigmat Special lens to be performing well.

Kodak continued production of the camera after WWII and beefed up the design with flash synchronization and a rangefinder.  However, those improvements did not allow Kodak's offering to catch up to the popularity of the Argus C-3 which had interchangeable lenses and no film transport issues.  In spite of the quirky design, the Kodak 35 is interesting historically, and it is pretty easy to work on.  I posted some notes on servicing the camera on Photo.net about eight years ago.  That model had a simpler lens and shutter than my recent acquisition, but the sunny day pictures it made seemed no less sharp to me.

fun in the sun

Lief Peng's fine blog about Twentieth Century illustration this week is featuring the work of Al Dorne. The first example of the artist's work is a 1946 ad which includes an accurate representation of the Kodak 35 camera.



I have acquired three examples of the Kodak 35 over the years. One is the infamous rangefinder version which was cobbled together to compete with the Argus C3. The other two, shown below, are earlier scale-focus models.
    The camera on the left with the accessory rangefinder has the Kodamatic shutter with speeds from 10 to 200 plus B and T, and the f3.5/50mm Kodak Anastigmat Special lens. The camera on the right has the No.1 Diomatic shutter with speeds from 25-150 plus B and T, and the f4.5/50mm Anastigmat lens. As can be seen in the sample photos posted on my web page about the Kodak 35, all are very capable performers.



The Anastigmat lens is a three-element design that was used on cameras made by nearly every manufacturer. As can be seen in the diagrams below, the Kodak Anastigmat Special is a four-elements-in-three-groups design very similar to the Tessar. The main difference seems to be the reversed orientation of the second and third groups. I don't know if there was any real advantage to the Kodak variation on the classic Zeiss Tessar design, but my own experience has shown it to compare very favorably with the great European classic lens.



The unusual appearance of the Kodak 35, reminiscent of the design of the company's medium-format cameras, is not immediately appealing to many classic camera enthusiasts, but it fits nicely in the hands and will produce excellent results if given the chance.