Square Medium Format ?

[Steve Boykin]

Steve, usually the lens and viewfinder need a clean-up. Not difficult to do (although sometimes the screws that hold the retaining pieces together can feel like the are welded in).

I bought the Hawkeye at lunch. I had to haggle them down to $5. They wanted $15. They were stunned to find out I was actually planning on using it. The shutter fires no problem. I do think the viewfinder and lens could use a good cleaning. Is there some special solution I should use? Pretty nifty little camera. The shutter is really slow so what ISO should I get?

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Steve, usually the lens and viewfinder need a clean-up. Not difficult to do (although sometimes the screws that hold the retaining pieces together can feel like the are welded in).

And it's square!!!!!!!!

 

[Brian Moore]

I had to haggle them down to $5.

I do think the viewfinder and lens could use a good cleaning. Is there some special solution I should use? Pretty nifty little camera. The shutter is really slow so what ISO should I get?

Excellent buy. Congratulations, Steve.

Soapy water is all you need to clean the glass. (I used some dish soap.) Take care when putting the lens back in. You expect the lens to have the convex side facing out; however, on the Hawkeye (and, I understand, other cameras that have the lens behind the shutter) the concave side faces out.

It's not a drastic problem if you put the lens in backwards, though. Indeed, some people do it deliberately for the effect.

ISO? You'll be fine with just about anything in the 50-400 ISO range. Remember, this camera was made in the fifties. Film was very slow then compared to what we have available now.

 

[David Mitchell]

I shot my Kodak Six-20 with some ISO 400 HP5, I just used the 'instant' setting rather than the 'bulb' setting and they came out fine. I think the shutter speed would be around 1/40th or something, not that fast but thats due to the slower film in those days.

What model did you actually get? Some take 620 film which is basically 120 film with a thinner spool lol

Here is my guide for fitting 120 film in a six-20 camera:

http://www.realphotographersforum.c...1-fitting-120-film-into-620-camera-guide.html

 

[Steve Boykin]

I shot my Kodak Six-20 with some ISO 400 HP5, I just used the 'instant' setting rather than the 'bulb' setting and they came out fine. I think the shutter speed would be around 1/40th or something, not that fast but thats due to the slower film in those days.

What model did you actually get? Some take 620 film which is basically 120 film with a thinner spool lol

Here is my guide for fitting 120 film in a six-20 camera:

http://www.realphotographersforum.c...1-fitting-120-film-into-620-camera-guide.html

I got the Hawkeye. It's the little brown bakelite one. I am going to disassemble/clean it this weekend. I found these great instructions online:

Kodak Brownie Hawkeye full review

The shutter appears to be working fine. It has a metal spool (which I assume is 620) already in it.

 

[David Mitchell]

Yeah that would be the 620 spool, put that in the take up side, you might get away with simply using a 120 spool on the feed side, but you may need to carefully trim the edges to make it fit correctly as per my guide above.