Super Kodak Six-20

Format

620

System

Super Kodak

Shutter

built-in leaf, 8 speeds to 1/200 plus bulb and a self-timer

Metering

selenium photocell, shutter-priority automatic aperture

Spec Notes

THE FIRST CAMERA WITH AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE, and six dimensions clear of everything else in this slice. HOW IT WORKS, which is more interesting than 'automatic': the selenium cell drives a galvanometer ARMATURE, not the diaphragm. Pressing the release takes the meter reading, an arm connected to the armature deflects according to it, a comb-like plate then TRAPS that arm, and the iris closes under spring force until it stops where the trapped arm permits. Below 1/25 s the aperture is set by hand. Also carries a coupled split-image rangefinder with a triangular central field, combined with the viewfinder in a single window, and a single-stroke lever advance coupled to the shutter that cocks it and prevents double exposure. Mechanism by Joseph Mihalyi, clamshell styling by Walter Dorwin Teague. ABOUT 719 WERE MADE - three museum and collector sources agree on the figure and NO Kodak-published production number exists, so it is recorded as an attribution, not a fact. SHUTTER SPEEDS ARE DISPUTED: Kodak's 1939 catalogue says eight speeds to 1/200 with a self-timer, its 1940 catalogue enumerates 1 to 1/200 plus B, and the Science Museum Group enumerates 1/2 to 1/200 plus B and T with no 1-second speed. They disagree on the 1 second and on T. THE DIMENSIONS ARE A MUSEUM'S MEASUREMENT OF ONE OBJECT, not a Kodak specification, and are labelled as such; no weight is published. SERIALS: this is the one camera in the slice that carries a body serial, and the published numbers are irreconcilable - the Science Museum Group records 59714 while a collector documents 875 and 2488. Both of the latter exceed the ~719 total, so neither set can be a plain production sequence, and no serial-to-year mapping exists. The museum's 59714 may be a lens or shutter number; that record separately gives the lens as No. 689. Reliability note from the Eastman Museum: the self-timer was prone to locking up the shutter. DATING: PARTIAL, AND ONLY THROUGH THE LENS. From about 1940 a Kodak Ektar, Anastigmat Special or Anastar carries the CAMEROSITY two-letter year prefix on its serial (C=1 A=2 M=3 E=4 R=5 O=6 S=7 I=8 T=9 Y=0). This camera was sold with such a lens inside that window, so an example wearing one can be dated FROM THE LENS - which dates the LENS, not the body, and lenses were swapped in service. Examples on the cheaper rungs carry no code at all. The body has no serial scheme.

Fitted Lens

Kodak Anastigmat Special 100mm f/3.5, iris to f/22

Rangefinder

Yes

Negative Size

2 1/4 x 3 1/4 in

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1938