C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →rangefinder-medium-format
The Plaubel Baby Makina is a medium-format strut-folding camera introduced by Plaubel & Co. of Frankfurt, Germany, in 1934. It applies the same rigid strut-supported bellows mechanism that defined the full-size Makina line to a reduced body designed for the 6x4.5cm format on 120 film, yielding 16 exposures per roll rather than the 8 exposures of the 6x9 Makina II. The result is a camera meaningfully smaller and lighter than the standard Makina while retaining the structural rigidity that distinguished the strut-folder design from conventional hinged-door folders.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the — format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
View profile →C41
Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
View profile →Develop — film
We're growing the lab directory near you. Browse all labs.
Before you buy used
About this camera
A compact 6x4.5 strut-folder -- the smaller sibling of the full Makina line, introduced in 1934.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 120, 6x4.5cm (16 exp per roll) |
| Lens | ~Plaubel Anticomar or Orthar (fixed) |
| Years | 1934 -- c. late 1930s |
| Shutter | ~Compur leaf: 1s -- 1/250s + B |
| Meter | None |
| Battery | None |
| Viewfinder | Optical direct |
| Focus | Strut-bellows extension |
Plaubel introduced the Makina line in the early 1920s, and by the early 1930s the standard Makina and Makina II had established the company's reputation for precision strut-folder construction in the 6x9 format. The Baby Makina of 1934 extended the concept to a smaller body and the 6x4.5 frame size, which was gaining commercial traction in the mid-1930s as photographers sought a middle ground between the full 6x9 format and 35mm.
Production continued through the later 1930s. Like the rest of the German Makina series, production was almost certainly disrupted by the onset of World War II in 1939. The Baby Makina was not revived in the postwar period; the Makina line resumed production in the 6x9 format only, continuing through the IIIr until 1970. The compact-format concept was not revisited by Plaubel until the Japanese-designed Makina 67 era beginning in 1979, which used a different format entirely.
The Baby Makina is historically notable as one of the earlier production cameras to bring the strut-folder mechanism to the 6x4.5 format. It demonstrates Plaubel's willingness to scale its proprietary design across format sizes -- an approach that most competitors in the 1930s did not pursue with the same mechanical commitment.
For collectors, the Baby Makina occupies a niche within the already-specialist market for prewar Plaubel cameras. It is rarer than the full-size Makina II and IIr, and examples in working condition with intact bellows are correspondingly harder to find. Its design represents a direct historical ancestor -- in concept if not in mechanics -- of the postwar compact medium-format camera category.
BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Plaubel Baby Makina
Image coming soon