dianaschnuth

I picked up the Pickwik Reflex at a garage sale for $4. As I recall, the woman assumed a camera that old (circa 1940) would only be good for decoration; she was surprised when I told her it looked like it would actually work.

It’s a pseudo-TLR box camera that takes half-frame photos on 127 film (aka Brownie film). No settings other than Instant / Time (Bulb) for long exposures. Online reviewers of this camera generally mention that the half-frames tend to overlap, and that the focus is iffy. Given the heads-up, I was able to wind the film so that the “A” exposure was at the very leading edge and the “B” was at the very trailing edge, so I only got two instances of overlap: the very first four exposures, which were my test of winding the film “correctly” versus intentionally overcorrecting.

As far as the iffy focus, I’m convinced it’s a film plane issue. Each of my exposures were out of focus in one place or another, and they weren’t consistent — not like other toy cameras that have specific sweet spots.

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