this being one of them.
this i got just last summer from a friend's father. he collects old things as well. this is a bell and howell 'filmo' 16mm movie camera. if i remember correctly, i saw an ad for it online from 1925. yeah. pretty old. the price on the 1925 poster said they wanted $180 for it. just out of curiosity, i went to an inflation calculator, and in 2008, that would have cost $2193.22. this camera is fully functional. despite the fact that there is no winding key. i opened the side of the monster up and wound the mainspring inside it. it ran at a constant rate for just about one and a half minutes.
when i say this guy is a monster i mean it. if you are used to holding little video cameras or digital cameras, this guy will come as quite a shock to you. i went to my fathers bathroom scale and it said it came in at only 5.2 lbs. that kinda surprised me, because it feels more like 10 lbs.
the body has some basic controls displayed on it. on the front of the camera on the lens you can see an F~stop adjuster. on the right side near the top there is a film counter. underneath the winding key on the same side there is a beautiful impression of a coat of arms which proudly states 'STANDARD BELL & HOWELL COMPANY CINE~MACHINERY. beautiful. above the coat of arms and kind of on the top, you see a push~button style shutter release, and directly underneath that, as you can see in the picture, is an info plate. and the rest is just some film door keys and the viewfinder on the other side.
underneath the film door, there is a set of sprockets which transport the film from a 100 ft roll onto an empty spool. and again, when i wound it up on the inside, i could see all of the mechanism working when i pressed the shutter. and i tell you, it was one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen.so at any rate, goodnight everybody. this time change has done weird things with my sleeping habits, i'm tellin' ya now.
taizomaizer punching out.
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