The Bencini Koroll 24 S ! A flashy Italian Roll Film Camera of the early 1950's.
- Kamera Ostalgie
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
I have a little theory that if a camera has a high quality case, then the camera inside that case will be a high quality camera. I'm usually right, but not always ! There is always an exception to any rule.
This is the exception!
The case is of top quality leather, the stitching is neat.
This is a top quality case. This case would not be a disappointment covering screw thread Leica, in fact it is of far superior quality than most screw thread Leica cases.
So you get a shock when you open this case and out pops a Bencini Koroll !
A what you may well ask? A Bencini Koroll ? Yes, a Bencini Koroll 24 S no less!
So, what exactly is it ? Well it is a simple 120 Roll film camera taking 24 exposures of 3.0 x 4.5cm in a sort of half fame format. Half frame 120 if you like! The idea is sound, but although this is a nice piece of well cast polished alloy that really looks the part it has little substance to back it up! You could say if you were being a little unkind, it is typically Italian!
Lets have a quick look at its impressive specification!
Shutter 1/50th of a second and B. No I've not missed a line of text, that is your lot you have just two speeds.
Apertures, er well we have f9 and f16 ! That is it. F 16 is a little strange though, instead of the stop being circular as you would expect and as is f 9, f16 is shaped like a letterbox. There must be some reason , but it escapes me.
Focus is by guesstimate but it goes down to 3 feet.
The viewfinder is tiny, but actually nice and clear to look through and it sits in a chrome plated shield, as if there is not enough shiny surfaces to contend with.
The shutter speed control is the weird little serrated lever you can see just above the letter S on the lens surround.
The aperture control you can just see sticking out at the bottom of the lens panel. There is nothing conventional about this camera.
Here we can see the half frame mask set up, 24 on 120 ! Brilliant.
This camera looks odd whatever angle you look at it from, ungainly you might call it, or stylish if you like, but it is certainly not conventional.
There is one thing that I'm certain about this camera, you can't take a picture of it without multitudes of reflections ! It is like a mirror that is full of curves and angles.
You know, despite its poor specification, its lack of quality and substance, its lack of shutter speeds and apertures, I like this camera! I'm tempted to try it out, the yellow filter will be a good help in not over exposing everything, so maybe it will be worth a try?
In a way the lack of its specification means there is less to go wrong, also with one shutter speed, and only two stops there is less for the user to get wrong too, so put that together, then there is so little to go or get wrong, so nothing will go wrong and you will get 24 perfect pictures.
Or is my logic to simplistic?
Canny Cameras gave his 24 S a go, you can see the results here.
This post is interesting on the earlier version.
This one, a Bencini Comet even went back to Italy and really performed!
Why not give one a go? The three above posts should have inspired you!
Have a look on ebay there are lots of Bencini cameras out there. 210 in fact as a write this post. Loads of different versions and models some 127, some 120 even the odd 35mm, most of them are under a tenner! Potentially a subject for collecting on a very tight budget and still being interesting ?
It got me wondering, there are so many examples of Bencini cameras on eBay. Now usually when there are a lot examples of a particular vintage camera still available they are either indestructible or they were available in huge numbers when new. The Koroll is a combination of both! Bencini cameras were imported into great Britain by Boots, the High Street Chemists, in the days when they had a shop in nearly every town in the country. Thousands of them must have been imported from Italy.
So add to that, the fact these Bencini cameras are built! Not built to a high spec but built like shiny tanks out of solid alloy! As cameras go, they are indestructible, its just a solid alloy casting with a steel back fitted with a basic simple shutter and a lens!. No cardboard, no plastic, no wood, nothing to decay! No wonder they have such a good survival rate and they still work!
Go on, treat yourself, spend a tenner and have some fun! Shows us all the results that you get! We will add them to this post!
Finally check out the post below if you like messing and modifying! I'll stick to using 120 film in mine, but it has to be said, there are advantages to converting the Koroll to 35mm, it's very interesting, have a read.
Oh and if you want to know the history of Bencini check this post out here, no point in me writing it when we already have a concise history.
Hope you enjoyed this post, please like and subscribe if you did so.
take care,
Phil
I missed some shots off from another memory card, so here they are!
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