I’m writing this post while the negatives are still drying and before I’ve had a chance to examine or scan them.

I came across a Facebook Marketplace ad for a lot of three camera. None of them are valuable or sought after. But I have a hard time resisting cheap inexpensive cameras. There was nothing about any of these cameras that should have excited me, but fast-forward 12 hours later and I was consumating the transaction.

I met up with the seller in a QuikTrip parking lot. He brought his cameras and his wife. I was alone and brought cash. I didn’t even examine the cameras or try to barter. $20 and the deal was done

Upon inspecting the cameras back at home, I was most interested in the Kodak Duraflex II. My research showed that the Kodak Duraflex II was manufactured between 1947 and 1950. It looks like a TLR, but is actually just a simple box camera. I was intrigued.

My Duraflex was dirty. Oh, so dirty. I completely disassembled it and cleaned it up. It received more elbow grease than a camera of this nature probably deserved. I even replaced the deteriorating light seals.

Despite its primitive desgn, the camera is capable of produsing nice photos. It uses the semi-proprietary 620 size film. So I went about trimming up the spool on a roll of 120 size TMax 100 to make it fit.

I’d been stranded at home due to an ice and snow storm, and set out on foot to shoot the roll on a quick walkabout through my neighborhood. It was 12 degrees at the time of this walk.

I was gone for a mere 40 mintutes. Upon my return back home, my girlfriend told me that our dog whined for me entire time I was gone.

Because of the still fresh snow on the ground, I set the exposure setting to f/16 “BRIGHT SUN ON SNOW OR SAND.” There were only two other settings available to me. I’d loaded a roll of Kodak TMax 100. WIth no other settings to consider, I walked through the neighborhood with essentially a point-and-shoot.

My biggest frustration with the camera was struggling to advance the film after each shot. I mean, it was a real struggle. I kept waiting by for the film to snap. I returned home, cold and cranky. I learned by opening the camera back that the film spool was all cockeyed which preventend it from smoothly advancing. This caused me to be concerned that the film would have stress lines.

And because I want to share both my failures and successes, below is my latest failure.

I immediately threw the film onto a developer reel. I souped it in Rodinal 1:50 for 6 1/2 minutes at 74 degrees. After fixing and rinsing, I saw that some frames were visible and hung it in the shower to dry. I write everything above while the negatitives are still wet.

And because I want to share both my failures and successes, below is my latest failure. An abject failure. The negatives looked okay, but all the photos are out of focus. Either A) I reassembled the camera incorrectly when I was putting it back together, or B) I failed to utilize the focus ring. There’s a focus ring which is independent of the lens but adjusts the taking lens for how far away your subject is. I was shooting with the idea that things at infinity would be in focus when instead the focus rings was set for closer subjects. Either way, this roll of film is a bust.

At some point I’ll take this camera out for another shoot with (hopefully) better results.