Those that know Meghan and I know that we have what appears to be an on going camera acquisition “problem”. Really all it is, is a desire to try all of the cameras!!!
We have started collecting many vintage cameras now over the past few years, but in an effort to not let our collection get out of hand we decided to only collect cameras that work and can actually be used.
However, not all are winners and some are just easier or more fun to use but you have to shoot with them first to find out! Thus, we decided if we run a roll through every camera we are interested in, not unlike going on a 5 minute date with a bunch of strangers at an singles night, we can quickly see which are worthy of being added to our collection. Camera speed dating!
Here is most recent camera I had the pleasure of a quick date with….The Beacon II 127 format camera.
A few facts about the Beacon II, it was produced by Whitehouse Products based out of Brooklyn NYC from the mid 40’s to mid 50’s. The Beacon II has two settings B and I, it has a fixed aperture of f11 and its shutter speed is approx 1/50S. The Beacon is a half frame camera made from bakelite and when shooting it one must first pop out the front lens.
This is one of my very favourites! I love its little face! I used Bluefire Murano 127 film to take these photos. I did make a big mistake though because at first I didn’t realize the Beacon II was a half frame camera, I just didn’t think about it. So every second frame was wasted because I wound the film forward too far. I felt it took quite good photos for being a small bakelite camera. It did a good job on both sunny and brighter cloudy days. Even its light leaks didn’t ruin the negative, if anything I think they added to it.
Meghan also has a Beacon, but it is the Original Beacon variant, she has yet to shoot with it but here is what it looks like…
