Kodak Brownie

Frank A. Brownell invented the Brownie for the Eastman Kodak Company.^[6] Named after The Brownies, characters popularised by the Canadian writer Palmer Cox, the camera was initially aimed at children. More than 150,000 Brownie cameras were shipped in the first year of production,^[7] and cost a mere 5 shillings in the United Kingdom. An improved model, No. 2 Brownie, came in 1901, which produced larger 3.25-by-2.25-inch (1.44:1 aspect ratio) photos, cost $2, and was also a huge success.^[5]

The Brownie gained broader appeal as people realised that, although very simple in design and operation, it could produce very good results under the right conditions.

As they were ubiquitous, many iconic shots were taken on Brownies;^[5] on 15 April 1912, Bernice Palmer used a Kodak Brownie 2A, Model A^[8] to photograph the survivors on deck of the RMS Carpathia, on which Palmer was travelling.^[9] Soldiers took Brownies to war, but by World War I the more compact Vest Pocket Kodak Camera and Kodak's Autographic Camera were the most frequently used.^[10]

Also posthumously known for its huge photo archive is Czar Nicholas II of Russia's family, especially his four daughters (known as the OTMA sisters).^[11][12] They even managed to make their Brownie models produce panoramic 4:1 photos (see Gallery).

Having written an article in the 1940s for amateur photographers suggesting an expensive camera was unnecessary for quality photography, Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy used a Brownie camera to stage a carefully posed snapshot of 17-year-old Pat Stewart,^[13] a Tiller Girls dancer, with her friend, Wendy Clarke, sitting on railings of North Pier, Blackpool,^[13] for the cover of Picture Post.^{[14][15][16][17]}

The Kodak Brownie Number 2 is a box camera manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company from 1901 to 1935.^[7] There were five models, A through F, and it was the first camera to use 120 film. It also came with a viewfinder and a handle.^[18] The Brownie Number 2 was made of a choice of three materials: cardboard, costing US$2, aluminum, costing US$2.75, and a color model, which cost US$2.50. It was a very popular and affordable camera, and many are still in use by film photographers.^[19]

The cameras remained popular and spawned a wide variety, including a Boy Scout edition in the 1930s. In 1940, Kodak released the Six-20 Flash Brownie, Kodak's first internally synchronized flash camera, using General Electric bulbs. In 1957, Kodak produced the Brownie Starflash, Kodak's first camera with a built-in flash.^[7]

The Brownie 127 was popular,^[20] selling in the millions between 1952 and 1967. It was a bakelite camera with a simple meniscus lens and a curved film plane to compensate for the lens's deficiencies.^{[citation needed]} Another model was the Brownie Cresta, sold between 1955 and 1958. It used 120 film and had a fixed-focus lens.^[21][22]

The last Brownie camera made was the Brownie II, a 110 cartridge film model produced in Brazil for one year, 1986.^[23]

• The Diana camera was a low-cost "toy" camera introduced in the 1960s.
• Holga cameras were manufactured from 1982 to 2015 and 2017-present.