Brownie Super 27

What can I say about this little 1960’s jewel except it is “super!” This is a 60’s version of a Kodak box camera except like everything in the 1960’s it has a lot of extra “bells & whistles.”

This camera starts out with a clean sleek modern (in a vintage sort of way) design and a big bright (amazingly big & bright) viewfinder. The rotary shutter is working now just as crisply as it did nearly 60 years ago when it was new and has two speeds. 1/80^th is the normal shutter speed but if you open the little door to expose the flash it changes to 1/30. 

Did I mention it has a built in flash? Yep, just open the little door that usually conceals it and pop in an AG-1 bulb (if you can find one). Oh, by the way you will have to also put in a couple AA batteries in the battery compartment on the bottom.

The aperture is also rather sophisticated for a box camera. The normal setting is f13.5 for bright sunny days but you can turn the little selector on the front to choose f8 when its cloudy. With the two apertures and two shutter speeds you have a total of four different exposure settings, and a flash! Not too shabby for a simple box camera.

The camera handled well and was a pleasure to shoot as I went through my first roll of 127 Rerapan black & white film. I haven’t found any AG-1 flash bulbs so everything was shot in daylight. The only complaint I had was that the shutter is pretty easy to press so that if you wind after each shot like I do the shutter is always cocked and it is a bit too easy to inadvertently press the shutter when you don’t intend to. I wasted one frame on the roll that way.

This 127 camera shoots in the square format yielding twelve shots. I can’t wait to see how they come out but if the way the camera looks and handles is any indication the pictures should be great!