Modding the No.2A Brownie

Because this camera takes 116 film, I have to modify 120 film to use it. But that also means, for some reason, the numbers on the back of the paper are upside down and will advance for a 6x4.5 photo and not a 6x9 photo. I didn’t realize this, so I have a lot of overlapping images on those first few rolls.

Shooting those first rolls and figuring out what was going on led me to want a few things. First, no overlapping images. I needed to figure out how far to advance the film to avoid this. This was fairly easy, I found a few blogs that gave calculations for how far to advance the film, but I had to remember or write it down (it was something like, “advance it to the second dot after 5, then advance it to the space before 8). That was too complicated, I wanted something easier. I figured that making a mask so that the camera took smaller photos might do the trick. If I made a mask that was 6x4.5, then I could just use the numbers in the viewing window.

The next thing I wanted, though, was no light leaks. And that viewing window was letting in a lot of light*. So this meant I needed to cover the window. But if I covered the window, how would I know how far to advance the film? For that, I had to look at the film-winder. The winder on my No.2a Brownie was pretty loose and prone to being accidentally twisted. There was also no way to tell how far I had turned it, which made the fact that it could easily be bumped more frustrating. The first thing I did was make little ticks on the plate below the winder handle with a sharpie so I could keep track of the winder location. I also added a colored piece of tape to one side of the handle. Then I needed to make it harder to turn to keep it from accidentally turning. The winder pulls up to load film, and pushes back down to catch the take up roll, so I wrapped a tiny piece of tape around the shaft when it was in the up position to give it some friction. I don’t love my solution, because the tape slid down when I pushed the winder down and then back up, but it works for now.

*Fun fact, old black and white film was orthochromatic, which wasn’t sensitive to red light, thus the red viewing window. You could also develop this film in a darkroom with a safe-light, unlike modern films which are panchromatic and have to be developed in complete darkness.

Now back to that mask. Since I was no longer using the numbers on the back of the film, I could technically make a mask for any size image I wanted, as long as it was less than 6x9. I could even make fun shapes! (I’m thinking I should make a heart mask and take photos of couples <3) But I decided to start with a plain square 6x6 mask. I cut this out of black mat board and used double sided tape to secure it down. Now the only thing left to do is take some photos!