Kodak Target Brownie Six-20
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| image by Studioesper (Image rights) |
The Target Brownie Six-20 is a basic box camera manufactured by Kodak in 1941, part of a long design lineage that includes both the earliest box Kodaks and the very last bakelite box cameras Kodak made. This model was replaced by a similar design model named Brownie Target Six-20 in 1946. There are minor internal differences and a different Art Deco design on the fascia, but functionally, these are the same camera. The interior construction is predominantly metal and wood, but the box is leatherette over what appears to be very stiff cardboard, and there are cardstock parts to the interior as well.
The camera uses 620 film and produces images of 2 1/4" by 3 1/4" (6 X 9 cm). It features a twin finder design, one for portrait and the other for landscape, both basic brilliant finders. The lens is a simple meniscus design, behind the shutter, which is protected by a piece of flat glass. There is an aperture tab on the top front, which is a piece of metal with two unequal holes in it; the larger is normally in place behind the lens, but the tab can be pulled out to select the smaller aperture; the larger is probably somewhere around f/11, the smaller around f/22. The shutter is a basic design capable of only a fixed exposure, about 1/45s or so, making the camera susceptible to motion blur. The shutter release is a small lever on the photographer's right. It is spring activated and will automatically return when released. A tab above the shutter release, when pulled outward, gives bulb mode, in which the shutter remains open as long as the release lever is held down. The film advance is by a knob on the right hand side of the body. Advancing the film requires turning this knob counter clockwise. The back has a red window used for frame counting. The top of the camera has a handle with the model name imprinted. To open the camera, pull the advance knob outwards while rotating slightly (to counter-clockwise), pull up on the protruding lug at the front of the top strap and then pull the face out from the body.
The earlier variation has an art-deco pattern as shown in the illustrations, and on the later version this is replaced by a simpler pattern of three unequal vertical lines below each viewfinder lens.
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| w/ cover removed image by Dirk HR Spennemann (Image rights) |
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| red window image by Dirk HR Spennemann (Image rights) |
