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Balda Baldi

When it comes to folding cameras, it doesn't get much cuter than the Balda Baldi.  Made by the German company Balda in the 1930s, the Baldi is a self-erecting, folding 127 camera.  It produces a horizontally oriented 3x4cm frame; though the camera is so small, that it is easy to rotate and use in a portrait orientation as well.  It has an optical viewfinder that can correct for parallax via a small adjustment wheel.  It also features either front cell or helical focusing, depending on the exact iteration, of which there were a few. 

Film advance is done manually, via a pair of red windows in the back door where the camera actually uses the pre-printed numbers for the 4x6cm format twice each.  ...Think of it kind of like a 127 half-frame.  When not in use, the camera snaps closed into a pleasantly compact package that can easy fit into a pants or vest pocket.  

The Baldi can be found with several lens/shutter combinations.  Various shutters include Vario, Compur, or Compur Rapid while lenses can range from several Meyer Trioplan optics, with differing maximum apertures, to Vidanar or Gewironar optics.  It is quite possible that there are even more variations, of which we are not aware.

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