Brownie 8 Movie Camera

Hola!

A couple of days ago I got back from What The Heck Fest in Anacortes, WA, which is/was a super-rad music festival celebrating DIY in all its myriad forms. It also falls on the same weekend as Anacortes' Shipwreck Day, which is a huuuuge rummage sale that takes up several blocks. At this rummage sale I dug up a few new cameras! Yay!

One of these new cameras is the Brownie 8 Movie Camera, which I dropped a whole two bucks on. It was the childhood home movie camera of the lady I bought it from, so I'm really grateful to her for selling to me.

This is a regular 8 camera, like the Admira 8F, but what I didn't realize when I did that post is that you can load it with some light! Just not direct light, which goes without saying. Loading mag after mag of 16mm film in total darkness just made me think that 8mm must be the same. Also, I've tracked down a website where you can buy regular 8 film, at International Film Brokers. Unfortunately for me, shipping to Canada is 7 bucks PER ROLL, so I'm not going to get to test this baby any time soon.

That being said, I am enamoured with this camera. It's a wind-up, and it makes pleasing noises when it's running so I think this little guy was very well cared for. It's pretty simple to use. The exposure is manual, but each f-stop on the exposure dial has a weather descriptor paired to it. Assuming you have the right ASA, metering isn't necessary. After doing a bit of digging, I'm pretty sure these exposure suggestions were written with an ASA rating of 10 in mind, so I guess today you'd have to use that fast, mathematical photographer brain to adjust your exposure for the new film stock. I guess having 10 ASA film would make it easier to load your camera without fogging the whole roll...

My favourite part of this deal is that the camera came in its box, with the manual, so for your reference I'm including the instructions on how to load regular 8 cameras.

Please keep in mind that the ISO rating for regular 8 film in the 1960s when this manual was printed was very low, so be careful when loading your 50 or 100 film and do it with as little light as possible.

I hope that's helpful for some of you! Of course, every camera is different but this should get you on the right track.

Cheers,
Caity