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Kodak Brownie — You Can Still Use a Legendary 120-Year-Old Camera Today

Testing the Kodak Camera From 1907

Dmitrii Eliuseev
8 min readAug 28, 2022
Kodak Brownie 2A © Image by the author

Kodak Brownie was considered one of the important cameras of the 20th century. And the reason is straightforward — it finally made photography affordable and available to ordinary people. How does it work?

Let’s figure it out and test this camera today.

History

A Kodak company was founded by George Eastman in 1888, and at that time photography was a slow and expensive process.

Sanderson Large Format camera, the 1900s, Source © eBay

Big, bulky, and expensive cameras, using a sheet or even glass-plate film — for most people the only way to take pictures, was to go to the photo studio. But at the beginning of the 20th century, things began to change. Firstly, a roll film was invented (the patent for the roll film was issued even earlier, in 1881). Secondly, George Eatman was able to make the photographic process easier. His so-called “box camera” was sold for $25 (about $1000 in today’s money). The camera contained a pre-loaded film for 100 exposures, and when photos were made, the owner mailed a camera back to the company, Kodak printed the photos…

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Dmitrii Eliuseev
Dmitrii Eliuseev

Written by Dmitrii Eliuseev

Python/IoT developer and data engineer, data science and electronics enthusiast

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