Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash Camera

This was my first camera. I think it was a birthday present and I think I got it when I was ten. I used it for a long time. It was very easy to operate. I took fairly good pictures on a large negative that was about three inches by three inches. There were some drawbacks. A roll of film took eight or ten pictures and no more. It had one fixed lens that had a depth of field from about three feet to infinity.

You can see this camera is very simple and very basic. It comes with a built in carrying handle. There was an earlier model flash attachment for this camera that was much bigger than this one.

You can see the basic controls here. On the flash attachment the small white button releases the flash bulb. The grey button next to the flash attachment can be lifted to allow for time exposures. With that button raised the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is held down. The shutter button is the grey button opposite the flash attachment. The knob below it is used to advance the film. When using this camera the photographer must remember to advance the film. Otherwise double exposures will result.

To take pictures the camera was held at chest level. The photographer looked down through the square viewfinder to compose the picture and took it by pressing down on the button on the right. What the photographer saw through the viewfinder was approximately the picture that could be expected. The area seen by the viewfinder was smaller than the area taken by the film. As a result images always came back smaller than expected.

Here is the camera with the flash attachment removed. On the top of the camera at the front of the carrying strap there is a lever that locks the camera together.

Here the camera is taken apart. There is a metal spool at the front of the camera. A new roll of film comes with another metal spool. The spool attaches into the camera and the film moves over the opening at the back. When fully exposed the metal spool from the film becomes the take up spool for the next roll. The hole in the back with the red window shows the number of the picture on the back of the film roll. Black and white film back then was not sensitive to red light.