That's Franka Steen

With the weather too cold to do much either outside or in the shop, I've been working on the photo hobby. As a collector of old cameras and an admirer of things without batteries, I like shooting pictures with old roll film cameras, especially the folders. Both of these cameras are typical of late 1940's, early 1950's folding cameras. They're both Rolfix models made by Franka. The Rolfix Jr. (left) is the camera my mother used when I was a young-un. It's really only a step up from a box camera but it's a big step. The Rolfix is one that I picked up about a year ago. The Rolfix has a much better lens and a couple more shutter speeds than the Junior. It also has a self timer, which is nice if you want to include yourself in the picture but it's also useful when the lighting conditions require a slow shutter speed. You can put the camera on a tripod or just set it on a solid object and trip the self timer. Of course a cable release is designed for just that sort of thing but not everyone carries all the gadgets around with them.

The cameras shoot 120 roll film which is still widely available. It's getting harder to find someone to process color film other than a pro lab but with black and white like I shoot and process, it's business as usual. Both cameras will produce either 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 negatives or 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 negatives depending on whether or not the mask is installed in the back of the camera. I'm fortunate to have the mask that came with mom's Jr. since the Rolfix didn't have one when I got it.

Both cameras have somewhat limited viewfinders, which might explain why a lot of older photos have the classic people with their heads cut off thing. They also have scale focusing. You have to guess the camera to subject distance and then twist the lens in or out to get it set at the right focal distance. That might explain many of the blurry photos common to that era, as well.

There is no exposure metering system with either of them. You either had to have a separate exposure meter or just guess. Most of the cameras from this era had some type of markings on them to help with exposure setting. The Rolfix has a little red dot between f11 and f16 on the aperature scale. The settings you ended up with were usually the same you would have if you were using a box camera or later, a point and shoot type camera. These would give you a pretty good picture in sunny to overcast conditions taken outside with black and white film.

Both cameras have a flash synch terminal on them but they are for bulbs as opposed to electronic flash. Unlike curtain type shutters on most 35 mm cameras, leaf shutters synch at all speeds. With the Rolfix, the shutter goes as fast as 250th of a second. You could take some pretty good action shots if you had a flash and the bulbs to go with it. Flash bulbs can still be found but aren't cheap.

Most of these old folders are pretty reliable and the lenses are usually in good shape because they're safely tucked away when not in use. If you come across one and are thinking about buying it, take a good look at the bellows to see if it looks like it's still light tight and cycle the shutter at a couple of different speeds. Even if the shutter's a little slow, you can still take pictures. Just run a test roll through it to see how far off it is and adjust for it next time. I've got another old folding camera that I modified to take a different film size and after putting in a whole lot more work than what the project was worth, I discovered the bellows had a couple of leaks. I just took the back of the camera off and shined a flashlight inside while I had the room lights turned off. After locating the leaks, a little black hockey tape did the trick.