THE CAMERA

The Kodak No. 3A Autographic is one of Kodak’s early folding cameras and was designed to take a variant of 122 format film, commonly known as the postcard format. The specific variant in question is 122 autographic which allows you to use the camera’s metal stylus (held by a metal clip onto the back of the camera) to record information about the photograph you just took by opening the long window underneath the stylus holder on the rear panel of the camera and writing directly onto the margin of the negative via carbon transfer paper.

The No. 3A Autographic Kodak Special Camera was manufactured from 1914 to 1934. From 1916 and on it featured the Kodak range finder. The No. 3 Model B that took the photographs in this project came with a Kodak anastigmat 170mm f/6.3 and Kodamatic Shutter with a cable release.

The basic ball bearing shutter came with five different speeds: Time, Bulb, 1/25, 1/50, and 1/100 seconds. Once you unfold the camera by finding and pressing the hidden button located on the handle side of the bottom plate, the 3A is fairly simple to operate. You compose by using the right-angle viewfinder above the lens, focus using the scale on the front panel and fire the shutter by pressing the lever at the lens barrel’s 10 o’clock position or with the cable release. Other lens/shutter combination options were also available from Kodak.

Features on the Model B included a black leather bellows, autographic feature, rising front, combination back, range finder, adjustable rack and pinion focus, focusing scale, reversible brilliant finder and two tripod sockets.