Shooting the Kodak Bantam

I stopped up the last pinhole in the bellows of my Kodak Bantam 4.5 model and ran some TMAX 100 through it.

The image quality showed some definite improvement without the light leaks.  The Anastigmat Special lens on this camera is the same as the one on the later Flash model, but it lacks the bluish coating, which may result in just a little less sharpness, partly due to a greater tendency to flare the highlights.

I again used 35mm film in the camera, which is actually designed to take small rolls of 828 roll film.  The ends of a strip of 35mm is taped to both spools and loaded in darkness into the camera.  The reel is a tight fit on the take-up side, and requires some patience to get properly seated without being able to see what you are doing.  Some care must be taken at the same time so as to not put too much stress on the spool end disks which are a press-fit onto the spindles and can be dislodged.

In shooting 35mm film in the 828 Bantam, it is useful to bear in mind that the bottom film rail is narrower than the top.  The result is that the image will be displaced vertically and the bottom row of sprocket holes will intrude into the image.  To compensate for that difference and properly center the image, it is necessary to aim a little high in framing your subject.

museum pieces

I liked my Kodak Flash Bantam so much that I decided to get the earlier model Bantam without the flash capability so I could compare the two closely related cameras.

Aside from the flash capability the differences between the two cameras are mostly cosmetic.  Production of the f4.5 Bantam started up in 1938, but the post-war f4.5 Bantam overlapped the production of the Flash model for a year in 1947, and it had essentially the same coated four-element lens.

My Bantam came with an intriguingly inked inscription on the inside of the back: CUBA -- 1940.  Cuba could be the Caribbean island, or the little town of that name in northern New Mexico.  The 1940 date seems too early given the camera's coated Anastigmat Special lens.  A mystery.

The front lens of the viewfinder had a crack in it.  The shutter was very sluggish.  I swapped the finder with that from my Flash Bantam.  The shutter took quite a lot of work to get it going.  I was unable to screw out the inner lens group, and ended up just squirting some electrical parts cleaner into the openings of the shutter.  I was able to remove the rear lens, which let me clean the rear of the shutter blades, and that got it working at all speeds including T and B.

update:
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The images I got from my first two roll through this Bantam were lacking in contrast and had some hot spots.  Not what I was expecting from one of Kodak's fine Special lenses.  At first I was ready to blame my developer, but the more logical explanation was a light leak.  Sure enough, holding the camera up to the sun with the back open revealed one small pinhole that was likely the source of the problem.  A little black fabric paint took care of that, so I'm ready to roll again.