Nifty Little Box - The Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor 54

This box camera is just a bit more then a simple box.

I got this lovely Box Tengor on eBay a few months ago, together with two Kodak Brownie box cameras. It looked a bit fancier then the Brownies, with its black, decorated face. And, it was made for 120 film.

The Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor 54 was introduced in 1934 and discontinued in 1938 and was one of the later members of the Tengor family.

It has a Gorez Frontar lens with fixed focus. The focus distance selector offers two options: 3-10 feet (0.3-1 m) and 10 feet (1 m) to infinity. The 3-10 feet mode is achieved by a supplementary lens that rotates into place. It has two aperture settings, 11 and 22. The shutter speed is quite slow, judging by the results of my shootings I would bet on 1/30. Above the shutter release you can find a little tab that when pulled out switches to B (or T as it is marked on my Box) mode. The shutter release has a safety that locks it to prevent accidental release. A cable release is also available and my Box came also with a very short but very cute cable, which I still have to fix. The Box’s dimensions (9.5X8.5X9.5 cm) make it quite compact and easy to carry around.

As mentioned before, the Box Tengor 54 was made for 120 film, and unlike most of the box cameras then, it shoots 6X4.5 (instead of 6X9), squeezing 16 frames out of a 120 roll. I found the “counter” system simple and brilliant. In the back of the Box there are two little red windows to read the numbers on the back of the film roll. The are aimed to read the 8 exposures (6X9) numbers, and the trick is that each number is read twice, once in each window, which gives you 16 readings. There are two viewfinders, as in many box cameras, one for horizontal position and one for vertical position. The ones on the Box Tengor are quite clear and bright after I gave them a little clean. One thing might be a bit confusing is that the horizontal/vertical positions: when the camera is standing tall you are actually taking horizontal (landscape) photos, and when laid on its side it’s in its vertical position (portrait).

I was very happy with the results I got from the Box. The photos have this lovely “aged” feel to them, and if held steady or placed on a surface or a tripod, the lens delivers quite sharp images. This camera was made for very slow film (50 iso and lower) so keep that in mind if you are using higher speed film.

Well, to sum it up: I find it a great box camera, small, 120 ready and economic! Get one if you can…

paramir tarafından, 2010-12-04 tarihinde ve #donanım #medium-format #120 #review #box #6x45 #box-camera #zeiss-ikon #tengor başlığında yazıldı.