Ersatz 828

 I walked through the neighborhood and into Old Town with my Kodak Flash Bantam.  The camera was built for paper backed 828 roll film.  That is the same size as 35mm without the double row of perforations, so I just rolled a strip of 35mm onto the little reels in the dark bag and covered the ruby window with tape.  One and one half rotations of the advance gave me pretty good frame spacing. I had a few overlapping frames and a couple double exposures, but the camera got the job done pretty well.

The film was some Agfa Vista 100 dated 2007.  I gave it a little extra time in the Cinestill C-41 developer, but there were still some pretty pronounced color shifts requiring photoshop correction.

Sorting out 828

I shot my second roll of Konica 160 in my Kodak Flash Bantam.  I gave the expired film a couple stops extra exposure and got good density in the negatives on this roll.  With no sprocket holes in the film which I would have with the 35mm I have shot in the past, the images take advantage of the full 828 format as shown in this full-frame scan.

Those bumps in the upper right of the image are produced by actual notches in the camera's framing mask.  I've made numerous inquiries about the purpose of this feature in the Bantam cameras, but have never received a satisfactory explanation about what purpose it might have served.

Using the 35mm film holder in my Epson scanner chops a bit off the long sides of the image.  I take that into account when framing my images in the viewfinder, but I do get somewhat panoramic proportions from the scans.

I was pleased with this roll of film to have gotten the film strip properly placed in the backing paper to be able to get the expected number of images from the strip with a little extra at each end.  The framing numerals were easily visible in the window on the camera's back and I got perfectly spaced images as a result.  There were some light leaks on the image at the beginning of the film strip and again toward the end.  I'll try adding some extra space to the backing paper at the beginning and end of the roll the next time.  So, still a bit of work to get everything just right, but using the properly configured film and backing paper makes shooting my 828 cameras a lot more predictable and enjoyable.

Feeding the 828 cameras

I took my Kodak Flash Bantam across town to the Nuclear Museum.  As usual I spent most of my time there admiring the small collection of aircraft behind the facility.  The three Cold War era bombers all have new paint jobs and look much as they would have while in service.

There is now a bomb casing under the wing of the B-29 which is the same as that used for the Fat Man A-bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

There are still a few B-52 bombers being flown today. The plane's maiden flight was made in 1952 and it is projected to remain in service for two more decades.

I have mostly just rolled a strip of 35mm film with no backing paper onto the little 828 metal reels that fit in the Flash Bantam.  With the frame counter window blocked, that has worked pretty well for the most part, but on this occasion I decided to try rerolling some 35mm film along with backing paper.

I have a strip of 838 backing paper which I salvaged from an old roll bought on ebay.  I used that as a template and cut out a strip for use from a saved 120 Acros roll.  I inked in the frame numerals along with some leading dots.  That gave me framing for eight exposure, just as in the original.

Scissoring out the backing paper was simple.  Getting the strip of film in place inside the dark bag requires some patience.  Usually, the beginning of the film strip is taped to the backing and the trailing "exposed" end is left free.  I found it helpful to tape the trailing end first to keep it in place and then inserted the tab in the spool and rolled the film and backing toward the "start" end.  I had to repeat this process a couple times as I got some buckling of the film when I tried to tape it at the "start" end.  I found it helpful to completely roll up the film onto the second reel and then unroll it back to apply the tape to avoid buckling.  Being able to see the frame numerals through the camera's back window was certainly nicer than guessing at the required number of winder turns.  However, having just eight exposure available seemed very limiting, and probably explains much of why the 828 format went away.

My 828 Cameras

Whatever method one chooses to get film into one of the 828 cameras the process is going to be a bit labor intensive.  Winding unbacked film onto an 828 reel lets me get 15 to 20 shots per load, but I have experienced a few instances of blockage and tearing.  The diameter of the 828 reels is very small, and tightly winding the stiff film strip creates a highly tensioned coil spring which can get out of hand.
    I'm thinking my next experiment with this format will be to use a hybrid method, taping a couple of inches of backing paper to the beginning and end of the film strip.  It seems like that would provide a more secure way to attach the film roll to the reels and maybe avoid some of the problems that come with using a completely unbacked film strip.

 More information about preparing film for use in 828 cameras:

• Kodak 828 Film at Brian Wallen's site
• Spooling 828 Film at Daniel Mitchell's site

Shooting the Kodak Flash Bantam

The Kodak Flash Bantam is a strut folder and one of the company's finest cameras in a line that originated from a simple design by Walter Dorwin Teague in 1935. By 1947 when the Flash Bantam appeared on the market, the shutter allowed speeds of 1/25 to 1/200 plus B and T. The four-element Anastar f4.5 lens had an anti-reflective coating and provided sharpness comparable to anything available at the time. The flip-up viewfinder is very bright and easy to use, and when folded down contributes significantly to the little camera's pocketability. The lens is fully focusable by estimation.

Kodak stopped producing 828-format film in 1985, but it is still easily possible to use the 828 cameras today, including the Kodak Bantams and the Argus M. Expired rolls of 828 film are often available on eBay and some new custom-rolled is sometimes available too. In either case, the film is a bit pricey, particularly since the little 828 rolls yield only eight exposures. Some ambitious enthusiasts cut down and re-roll 120 film to fit the 828 spools; while that nicely reproduces the original experience of using the camera, it is pretty labor intensive. A much easier alternative is to use standard 35mm film with no backing paper. The sprocket holes on the 35mm film will protrude slightly into the image, but the ease of use and increase in film length will compensate for the slight loss of image area.

 

The method I arrived at for using 35mm in my Flash Bantam requires two of the original 828 metal spools. I trim the protruding film leader square and tape it to one of the reels. The film is placed in a dark film changing bag and rolled onto the reel. The film is then cut loose from the cassette and taped onto the second reel, at which point it can be loaded into the camera which has had the back window previously taped to prevent exposure of the unbacked film in the camera. Advancing the film between exposures is done by rotating the winding wheel one-and-one half full turns for the first six or eight exposures, and one full turn for the remaining exposures. A 24-exposure roll of 35mm film will yield 15 to 20 frames per roll using this method. I develop and scan my own b&w film, but it is also possible to use commercial processing by putting the film back in the dark bag, taping the film end to the stub of film sticking out of the cannister and rolling it back in.

In addition to securely covering the frame window on the back of the camera, there are a couple other very simple camera modifications to the Flash Bantam which will greatly enhance the use of the camera with 35mm film, and also improve the images that will be captured by the coated Anastar lens. The little movable pawl that engages a toothed wheel allowed easy frame positioning with the original 828 film, but it is not needed and is a nuisance when loading and advancing 35mm film. To keep the pawl from slipping into the film sprocket holes you can easily introduce a small piece of foam rubber between the pawl's lever and an over-hanging tab on the camera body.

Some of my first 35mm film images from my Flash Bantam were lacking in contrast and showed a hot spot in the middle of the image. The image problem looked initially like lens flare, but the real origin was reflection at the time of exposure off the plastic framing window on the back of the camera. The simple fix was a strip of black paper cut to fit between the springs behind the pressure plate; if made the width of the camera back it will cover the shiny screw heads there as well as the reflective inner surface of the plastic window.

In shooting the Flash Bantam it is a good idea to aim a little high with the viewfinder in order to properly center the image between the film's sprocket holes.

My Flash Bantam needed just some cleaning of the lenses and a little squirt of electrical contact cleaner into the shutter to get it working properly. An excellent tutorial on Flash Bantam shutter repair can be found at the Camera Collecting and Restoration site.

A manual for the very similar Bantam 4.5 can be found at the Butkus site.

Numerous examples of images made with the Flash Bantam are available on the blog.

Flash Bantam on the Front Page

My favorite little American-made folding camera, the Kodak Flash Bantam, has been featured on The Guardian.

The Guardian -- 12-12-14

The picture was illustrating a brief history of time capsules, and the camera is part of a stash in a capsule buried under the site of the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing, New York.  The capsule is scheduled for opening in the year 6939.  Given humanity's current trajectory, it seems rather optimistic to imagine that anyone will be around to dig up the treasure.  Clearly, however, a high degree of optimism about the future is the whole point of such exercises.

There is an interesting fact about the camera and the date of the capsule's burial which was not noted in the Guardian article.  The Bantam model actually in production at the time of the 1939 World's Fair was not the Flash Bantam, but rather the Bantam 4.5.  The Flash Bantam was not marketed until 1947.  Given the similarity of the two cameras, it is certainly not unlikely that the company had a pre-production example ready to go into the capsule, but I have not seen any evidence of that before.

baseline

I recently acquired a couple more Kodak Bantam cameras which I hope to report on here soon.  They will be measured, subjectively to be sure, against the performance of the Kodak Flash Bantam, the little 828-format folder which to my eye delivers results disproportionate to its compact size.

Harleys

Ft. Mitchell Fire Dept.

Tingley Ponds

so far so good

My second roll of home-processed color is from my Kodak Flash Bantam, shot on an over-cast day.

The color seems to match my recollection of the scenes pretty well.

A couple posts I found on the web about using the Unicolor kit implied that a final dip in photo-flo was not needed.  I tried it out and got a bunch of water spots.  Luckily, a quick re-dip in my usual dilute solution of photo-flo eliminated any spots.

The development time for Unicolor at 102F is just 3.5 minutes.  I would be more comfortable with more time which would be more forgiving of small timing errors.  So far, though, I can't see any real problem with the actual results.

A swim and a walk

Margaret said she wanted to swim in a lake for her birthday, so we drove to Santa Rosa and pitched our tent beside the big reservoir there.

There were a few other campers at the State Park, but she was the only one in the water.

Back home, I took my usual morning walk and finished off the strip of Tri-X in the Flash Bantam.  I'm exposing it at 200 ASA and developing in Tmax developer at 1:9 dilution.

The Mercedes is nearly always parked in the corner lot east of the Plaza Vieja.  I'm guessing there is a connection to the Rattlesnake Museum which is just around the corner.

Labor Day Ride

We enjoyed a morning ride on the motorcycle along Albuquerque's west side to the Double Eagle II airfield.  The terminal there has a great little restaurant on the second floor with a view of the field, the nearby volcanoes and, in the distance, the Sandia Mountains.

The Bombing Range Cafe, the airport and several thousand surrounding acres are located on the former site of a practice site for training bombardiers during WWII.  For me, the cafe evoked memories of a similar coffee shop on the lake end of Renton Field south of Seattle where my family often started float plane fishing expeditions in the '50s.

On the way back we stopped briefly to enjoy a flight experience on a smaller scale at the Maloof Air Park.  There were some great flying models on display and we got to watch some expertly flown, including a quiet and fast ducted fan electric model that was really impressive.

The camera of the day was my little Kodak Flash Bantam, loaded with a strip of 35mm Tri-X.

Four elements in three groups

The refined design of the Flash Bantam makes it a pleasure to shoot.  The image quality, however, has to be attributed primarily to the Anastar lens, Kodak's version of the Tessar.

from: Kodak Lenses, Shutters and Portra Lenses - 1952

These shots are from a roll of Tri-X shot at ASA 200 and processed in Kodak TMAX developer at the 1+4 dilution.  

Marigold Special

The little Kodak Flash Bantam represents one of the all-time high points in camera design.  The designers took the best aspects of 50 years of small camera experience and combined them with the 828 roll film format to produce a camera of unparalleled compactness and full-featured quality.

To shoot the Day of the Dead Marigold Parade in Albuquerque, I loaded a strip of 35mm Tri-X into the Bantam by taping the film ends onto the little 828 reels.  The frame-counting window was covered with black tape, and some black paper behind the pressure plate also helped to keep the window light-tight.  I rated the film at 200 ASA for development in Ilfosol 3.  The Tri-X is not as forgiving of exposure errors as TMAX, but it can produce very nice sharpness and tonalities when you get it right.

In the Waiting Room