July 2, 2026
#547
Gentle reader,
It's been almost a year since I last wrote anything about cameras, lenses or photography. Yet, for YEARS that was all I "focused" on in this blog.
Photo from long ago, when I had more hair and well, more of me. Note the kitten, I named Monkey because he loved to climb me, perched in my hood. Every camera and all of those practice and toy rifles have all gone to new homes. Monkey's long gone as well.
There is, or was, they have since moved to another county north of here, a delightful couple in our church's congregation named Peter and Elizabeth. Their story of meeting exceeds Nancy's and mine, as far as how far and long God planned for them to meet and marry. Elizabeth is British and Peter American. They met in Germany. He was stationed there in the U.S. Army, she was a teacher at the school on base. This bag of cameras is the second one Peter gathered before they moved which he brought to the church to give to Chris, one of the many public school teachers who are members at fupcdc. Peter asked Chris if he would pass them on to the Photography teacher at the High School where Chris teaches. Which he did with the first bag...
Unfortunately, Chris and his lovely and wonderful wife, Carla, left the church suddenly. No need to go into that, it does not concern you nor this story. I will send Chris the link to this article to let him see the bag's contents and decide if he wants to pass them on or not. If not, I will donate them all.
Quite an interesting little lot I have here. Anything really interesting not yet seen? Let's explore further.
Well, well, well. Within that "Diamond Custom-Fitted Camera Case" box was not a Diamond Custom-Fitted Camera Case, instead was this Minolta SRT 101 35mm SLR film camera within it's Minolta brand leather case. Sadly, no lens was with the body. To learn a whole lot more about this camera, go here: Minolta SR-T 101 - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia
Between all of the cameras I have found and purchased since the 1990's as well as the THOUSANDS of them which the late Colonel Bill Arps (USA Retired) (image of him below) tasked me with selling before and after his passing, I have handled, tested, photographed, listed and sold via eBay countless multiple hundreds of them of all shapes and sizes. This was a nice camera in 1966. Now, it's nothing special.
Since it is sixty years old, this is not surprising. See that round thing with two little holes in it? One presses their finger on that and twists to the left. Beneath fits a Mercury 1.35 volt battery. While I have several 1.5 volt alkaline batteries which fit, and will make the meter work, due to the excess voltage, the reading will be off and thus the photos exposed incorrectly. Since the meter does not respond to said battery, as my ex-wife used to say, "The point is mute." 
The camera does work otherwise, so with a handheld light meter and choosing the aperture and shutter speed digitally (with your fingers) one can produce accurately exposed photos.
Nice little dial on the film door. One rotates it until the pointer faces the film speed number as a reminder what speed film the user loaded. No film window on this camera.
Like most 35mm SLR and rangefinder cameras, this one has a fabric shutter which opens right to left to expose the film. It works fine.
Especially since the light meter does not work.
With the back open one can see that the camera was serviced in 1983.
"SLR" stands for Single Lens Reflex. One looks though the taking lens rather than a a separate window on the front of the camera.
Silver lever on the left is the self-timer for taking group photos the photographer wants to be in. The silver button beneath it momentarily closes the aperture so that the photographer can see what the image will look like (depth of field) with the lens "stopped down" to the setting they are thinking about using. 
"Mr. J. Purcell" I'll let you see if you can figure out the rest of the address, "on" makes me think it is in England...
"The Kodak Brownie 127 is a plastic box camera for eight 4x6 cm pictures on 127 film, made in England by Kodak Ltd. It was an extremely popular snapshot camera in Britain. From its introduction in 1952, over a million had been made by August 1954, and the series continued to sell many more millions. A few (~263,000) of the first model were exported to the US in 1953-4, where they were badged Brownie Starlet, not to be confused with the more common Brownie Starlet." Camera-Wiki
The first mystery bag appears to be quite old...
What could it contain?
"Roll Film" is film which is not in any form of cartridge or light-tight container such as 35mm or APS is. There is a paper backing protecting the film from light, which has spaced numbers printed on it. The little window you see used to be darker red than it is now. One winds the white know on the top of the camera until seeing 1 in that window, takes the photo. Winds to see 2, etc.
This camera is about as basic as they came... White knob to wind the film, white button to operate the shutter.
Prior to looking this up and snagging the quote for you, I spied the "MADE IN ENGLAND". I suspect that Purcell was Elizabeth's maiden name. This was likely her mother or father's camera. Twist the lever/knob to the left and....
one can separate the top from the bottom. At this time, the last roll of film's empty reel is still in place.
A look inside the two halves. Note the curvature of the body and path of the film. That curve compensates for the simple meniscus single element lens' distortion.
The entire single speed shutter mechanism. The white button presses down on the "D" shaped piece of metal. Simple yet elegant too.
Ah! It seems to be something fairly modern. Could this have been Mr. Purcell's last camera, perhaps?
"The Pentax Espio 115(M) is a 35mm compact zoom camera with autofocus made by Pentax, introduced in 1996[1]. In the US it was called the IQZoom 115(M). It was part of the Espio/IQZoom series." Camera Wiki
Why, yes, there IS still film in it! "HD4" that's a new one to me. Remember when I said that the Minolta SLR camera did not have a "film window"? Well, this little Pentax does have one. See it on the door, far left?
And here is the battery. A true wonder that it has not gone dead. Don't worry about me opening the door. The film's lost it's viability by now.
I suspect that Kodak adding the words High Definition to this film's name was a hopeful lure to those thinking of going to the "Dark Side", which to film companies is the dreaded Digital cameras. The CR2 3 volt battery is still good.
The inside of the capable little Pentax camera. See those four sets of three pins above in the film chamber? That is to read the film cases "DX" encoding. So that it knows what speed film it has inside of it. See below:
Each film speed has different shaped metal patterns on their cases. The camera "reads" the shapes and sets the camera to the correct shutter and aperture setting for that film's speed. 
The film counter reset to Zero once I opened that back of it. Note the lens is now protruding.
I have handled and used all kinds of external camera flashes, but this SUNPAK Auto 322S is the most interesting I've seen in a very long time. 
Laying on it's back, you can see the many choices of settings it offers. What really made me think was, "Why the heck is there a gap between the foot and the body?"
Turns out that the whole body of the flash can be rotated 180 degrees while still being electrically and physically attached to the flash shoe. The "U" shaped wire is the PC connector. The Minolta SRT 101 does not have a "hot" shoe. Thus, one has to pull the PC connector out of it's little garage and attach it to the camera's PC socket.
The flash mounted on the camera's "cold" shoe. There are two PC sockets to the right of the lens mount. That's it for the SUNPAK in this story. Let's move on...
The last mystery from the bag is this 1950's (I think, not much information out there on ancient 8mm home movie cameras) Kodak Brownie Automatic Movie Camera f/2.3.
Name plate has seen some wear. Who knows how many feet of 16mm film were shot with it? What? 16mm??? Yes, the film is put through the camera twice, by removing the film reels and flipping and switching them. The film is developed, then slit lengthwise and spliced into one fifty foot film from the two 25 foot pieces.
The camera and valuable manual seeing the light of day for the first time in... Note the optical viewers flipped up on the top of the body. The silver thing is for winding the internal clock spring which runs the film through the camera for exposure.
A view of the other side of the camera. I'm glad that the manual was here, otherwise, I could not have gotten inside of the film housing.
The camera has no batteries. The clear plastic with bubbles on it near the top hides a likely now-dead Selenium light meter. According to the manual, without film ready to be shot, the camera will not run.
Like the other Brownie (it's actually dark brown, too) 127 still film camera, the last reel which held unexposed film is still in place inside the movie Brownie.
See? It needs to be moved to this empty "take up reel" position. Each side of the film reels has a differently shaped opening to coincide with the different shaped film spindles.
There! Now it's ready for new film to be loaded. The different shapes were important because the film has to be loaded and unloaded/flipped in total darkness. Thus, the reel will only go on the correct holder. 
Speaking of film! Here is a still factory sealed roll of 16mm movie film from Kodak! Note the bottom line of text on the box.
And, the final image is of the film box and the last date it could be processed. Not only is the now-long-dead film still sealed in it's tiny can, but the AIR from the Kodak factory is still there too!
Mystery bag number two. What could be hidden inside?
What's this? A number? Can it still have a viable battery and film within?
"Arggh!" You may be thinking! Patience, my friend, I'm getting there.
Ah! The lens' protector blades have opened once I switched it on.
And now, zoomed all the way out from 38mm wide angle to it's 115mm magnificence!
Having slid the outer box up and off, this is what I saw inside.
Detailed instructions....
Note the date it was printed, almost 60 years ago!
Thank you for joining me on the tiny quest of exploring the contents of the bag of old cameras. I enjoyed it did you too? Feel free to comment below or via Facebook.
I write two other blogs: Pictures of Nancy. The Love of My Life. And People Say I'm Special. But I Don't Know Why Feel free to take a look at them, if you like.
Scott Robb
July 2, 2026
#547
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