Call me lazy if you want but the photo above is not my own I got it from http://www.etsy.com/listing/56294419/1950s-ansco-anscoflex-ii-tlr-camera but it does show the camera I am going to be talking about!
The Anscoflex II is the predecessor to the Anscoflex, basically the only difference in the two was the addition of the two filter controls on the front of the camera. They date to the mid `50’s and originally sold for around $30 (which is a typical price on eBay today.) These enameled metal cameras were designed by Raymond Loewy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Loewy) with a fixed f/11 aperture and I am guessing the shutter speed is somewhere around 1/30 – 1/60 of a second. They shoot 12 6x6 images on 620 films (no longer on the market) but you can respool 120 films onto the 620 spools and use these cameras nowadays! Which is exactly what I did and here are the results!
The camera itself was a blast to work with, I had one person assume I was a meter reader because of the “thing” around my neck but it was very lightweight! I found it necessary to keep the leather cover on the camera when shooting as without there tends to be light leaks around the back of the camera. I found the viewfinder to be true to frame on the camera and the camera does prevent multiple exposures. Due to the lack of ability to adjust the shutter speed and aperture, I would classify this as a toy camera but a fun toy at that! I noticed the images were a bit on the contrasty side which is ok by me. On the technical side these images were developed using R09 (Rodinal Formula) at a mixture for 6 minutes using Fuji Neopan 100Acros.
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