I dug way back into my archives to update these two reviews.
The first is the Kodak Retina Ia, an early-1950s compact folding camera for 35mm film. The Retina line represented Kodak’s finest efforts in those days. Check out my review here.
I’ve also freshened my review of the Ansco B2 Speedex, which uses 120 film. For a medium-format camera, it’s fairly compact. Check out my review here.
I’m pretty sure that the lens on the Speedex is a three element design. You would have had to pay quite a bit more to get the 4 element Solinar, and it would have been an upgraded camera too. Still, I like this camera enough that I have a couple of them. It looks like the Anastigmat is not real sharp wide open, but even the 4 element Ektanar in my Signet 30 was soft at f2.8. I always did like the big negative from 120.
With all the cheap 620 cameras available, some quite competent, I am surprised that some of the film makers have not decided to put out their 120 film on 620 spools. I for one would be a customer.
The Film Photography Project sells 620 film — they custom respool 120 onto 3D-printed 620 spools. I hear it’s not hard to respool your own if you have a dark bag and a spare 620 spool.
Thanks bro
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