Kodak Duo Six-20

[PeterW]

Hi all,

I don't very often buy on Ebay but this quite nice looking 1937 Kodak Duo Six-20 caught my eye. I weakened, and and I won it at about half the price two camera shops within 30 miles of me are each offering one. It's described as 'in good vintage condition', and looks very nice, but we shall see when it arrives. This should be in about a week or so because I paid by personal cheque. With it comes a Wata rangefinder in a case on the camera strap.


This is the seller's picture, taken from Ebay. Hope they don't mind.

The Duo Six-20 is generally regarded as a precision camera designed by Dr. August Nagel and built in the Kodak factory in Stuttgart, Germany.

When he was with Zeiss Ikon Nagel designed the Ikonta and introduced the chopped-off corner flattened octagon body style that became almost a Zeiss Ikon trademark ... except that Nagel used it on the Retina and various other cameras he designed aftewr he left Z-I. The Duo Six-20 was made as a direct competitor to the Ikonta.

It takes 16 pictures on 620 film, so I'll have to respool 120, but that's no real problem. I've got a number of 620 spools. The lens is an f/3,5 Schneider Xenar which should be a good performer, and focuses on a helicoid, not by the front cell. It's mounted in a Compur shutter.

When I get it, and provided it's all in working order, I'll run a film through it and let you know how it performs. If it needs work doing on it you may have to wait a little longer.

Peter

[Randy]

Very nice Peter, good luck. I always use the pictures from the auction, I figure it's my camera once the Paypal is sent, so why not?

[PeterW]

Hi gang,

My Kodak Duo Six-20 arrived today, beautifully packed. I'm really pleased with it. It's spotlessly clean, and all the speeds work positively. The only thing that stops it being excl+ is a couple of paint chips on the very edge of the drop-down front.

Of course, when I got it I couldn't wait to test the shutter. Then I opened the back ... completely forgetting that the seller said it had a film in it!! . I closed the back again quickly and noticed that the film was on frame 4 out of 16, so I wound on to frame 6 hoping that the spool was wound tightly enough not to fog the rest of it.

Then of course I realised that either it was fogged or it wasn't, and I could have held the back open long enough to note what type of film it was. But instinct made me shut it quickly. How many years have I been handling cameras? Yet instinct (or gut think) still takes over from brain think.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's a print film so I think I'll rate is as a guess at 100 ASA on the basis that over exposure is better than under exposure because you can always lighten something in PS whereas you can't put back what was never there.

I hope to run the remaining 10 frames off in the next few days, if it isn't raining, so if I get any results I'll let you know.

The little separate rangefinder that came with it is also very nice. It's a German Watameter Mk 2 with a very clear co-incident image and operates from 22 inches to infinity. From a few preliminary checks it seems to be spot on.

Two nice points with it: 1) You don't have to take the meter away from your eye to read off the distance, you read it in a small section in the left of the viewfinder. 2) The moving image doesn't move horizontally, it moves slightly diagonally, and if when the images co-incide they don't exactly line up vertically, there's a small wheel at the side to adjust the moving image up or down. This also alters the distance just a fraction. Very neat.

Peter

[PeterW]

Today, as the weather was reasonable, I finished of the last remaining six frames on the film that was in my Duo Six-20 when I bought it. I didn't know what the film was, so I took a guess and rated it at 100 ASA. When I took it out I found it was an old Kodacolor X, C-22 process, print film (80 ASA when new) which was discontinued around 1975-ish, so it had been in the camera anything up to 30 or so years.

C-22 process kits haven't been available for years so I did a trawl round the net. The only people I could find to process it, with no guarantees,were a UK firm and Rocky Mountain in the US. Both of them wanted more than I paid for the camera for process only, plus postage. I also discovered, from people who had tried it, that C-41 chemicals are useless for it, and that most people who find a C-22 process film cross process it as black and white, giving it about twice the normal development time for HP5 in ID11 or D76. The images are dark because the process doesn't get rid of the orange mask, and are almost unprintable, but just about scannable and rescuable with an image editor like PS. Some images that were posted were quite good, others were failures, so it's the luck of the draw. I've run out of b&w developer at the moment, but I'll get some next week, dust off the tank and give it a try. Be interesting to see if anything's on there ... but don't hold your breath!

Peter

[Randy]

It's heartening to know the camera works for sure. I did the same thing as you last week Peter. When I got that Zenit I didn't know it had a roll of film in it, and opened the back. It had about 20 pics taken on a 24 shot roll. The film was Kodak MAX 400, and I'm going to take it to be developed. Hope there isn't anything on it that might embarrass me.

[herron]

Peter:
Rocky Mountain still processes some very esoteric old film sizes, and they do quite a nice job -- but they are a bit pricey. I have not used them often...only a couple of times, really, just to process a test roll, so I can say I've run film through all my functioning cameras!

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting back to processing my own B&W (since it's getting harder and harder to find someone who will do B&W that is not C-41 processable)! Not sure my wife will be happy with me pouring chemicals down the kitchen sink...or I would have the tank out already!

[PeterW]

Hi Ron,

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting back to processing my own B&W (since it's getting harder and harder to find someone who will do B&W that is not C-41 processable)! Not sure my wife will be happy with me pouring chemicals down the kitchen sink...or I would have the tank out already!

Don't pour them down the sink, then. Do as I do, go out the back door and pour them straight down the drain. Saves a lot of hassle ... unless, of course, you live on the 10th floor! In which case there's always the loo. .

Peter

[herron]

Peter:
That would work great...except there's no drain outside...except the storm drain down the street, which flows directly into the lake near my neighbor's house. Not sure he would take kindly to my chemical additives.

I guess the loo is my only choice.

[PeterW]

Peter:
That would work great...except there's no drain outside...except the storm drain down the street, which flows directly into the lake near my neighbor's house. Not sure he would take kindly to my chemical additives.

I guess the loo is my only choice.

Give it a year or two Ron, and with all that residual silver in the fixer you'll be the only person with silver plated loo flush pipes. How's that for a bit of one-upmanship?? ;D.

Peter

[herron]

I still have the feeling I will have to empty things in the middle of the night, after my wife is asleep, even if the pipes do have a silver lining.