Tag: Bella

Circa 1958

Since starting this blog this is the first camera I have actively obtained for the purpose of repair/refurbishment. I love this little camera, my thoughts are this is a Bella series 1 as later versions had the name on the body not in the hot shoe area as this one does. A low cost point and shoot of its time, I have had dealings with one in the past when I had to remove some film from one in a darkroom when the transport got stuck back in the early 1980s. Now this one is a nice tidy example of the model, and really needs little doing to it so my intention is to get it cleaned up, touch up the paintwork and maybe run a roll of film through it to check the mechanism, i may re cover the camera body, and will then put it in to storage for moving on at a later date.

These little cameras were the instamatics, or Olympus trips of their time, instead of using 35mm film (how they were designed to look) this particular model used 127 roll film that took 4×4 cm exposures, that format of film is still available today but as rare as rocking horse dung. They were made of what is called “pot metal” in theory just alloy based metal in its cheapest form.

I’ll explain what I intend to do with this camera below.

Inspection

On inspection the top has some light marking and scuffing that I can attend to with some polishing and a touch of paint, the black covering I may replace and some of the black metalwork will need some retouching. The internals again are fairly good so will just be cleaned on this occasion. The mechanism works ok, I have maybe detected some dragging on it so I will inspect it closer and I will lubricate accordingly if required. I will dismantle down the whole body as much as possible and give it a thorough clean, after all I doubt it has been cleaned that much in its 50+ years of existence.

In fact I’ve decided to go to town on this one and really mix it up. I’m going to replace the leather with a synthetic leather, cruelty free and vegan friendly. No animals suffered to make this product! and it’s bright coloured.

Here goes…

So to start I’ve pretty much dismantled the camera, the covering was a type of leather, I do know that if it was left on it would probably survive another 50 years as it was stuck to last. I had to scrape this off, sand it down and clean with a special solution to get the remaining adhesive and dirt off. I will need to produce templates to cut out the replacement covering as a result of this process.

The plan now is to touch up, buff up, retouch the paintwork again and give a final Polish before I apply the new covering.

I’ve now finished all the painting I want to do to this little camera, I have glossed buffed and painted again and the next stage is to apply some new synthetic leather when I’ve decided the one I will be using.

So all I need to do now is take some templates in preparation for when the new synthetic leather arrives.

See my update when the new covering arrives.

Information regarding this camera

The Bella is a line of cheap but attractive and well-built 120, 127 roll filmand 35mm cameras made by Bilora in Germany. The Bellas went through several revisions over the life of the name. The bodies are alloy castings, with added leather-effect covering – in various colour combinations. Each is styled a little more like a 35mm camera than a roll film one. The back is removable for film loading, and most models have a large back catch.
The 44 models make twelve 4x4cm images on 127 film; the 46 modelsmake 6x4cm frames on 127, and the 66 models take 6×6 photos on 120 film.
The Bella 44-1 was also sold by Ansco, rebadged as the Ansco Lancer. Bilora also used the names Roxa, Bonita and Reporter for Bella variants.
Manufacturer: Bilora, Germany
Shutter: B, 1/50, 1/100s
In production: 1953-1966

Camera-wiki.org