Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash

Good news! My Displate store is online with 10 posters and more on the way.

So for a metal print of my drawings on Displate: https://displate.com/artist/BFennSW?art=66e809bf952d9

Please note that I have closed my Picfair store, but you can now buy my pictures on my Patreon: patreon.com/OnlineCurator 

Thank you for the support. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming:

With Christmas around the corner and everyone going on holiday, I thought I would close this year’s blog entry with a camera that is aptly named for this occasion. This post will be looking at the Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash.

I already went through the history of Kodak in my 200 Color plus and Instamatic Pocket 10 posts. And for the history of the Brownie series please see my Brownie Model 1 post.

So with that I will jump into the camera at hand. The Holiday Flash seems to be based off of the Brownie Holiday camera, which was designed by Arthur Crapsey (Camera-wiki). Crapsey was “…an influential camera designer working for Eastman Kodak, who had a hand in a great many designs. After graduating in Ceramic Design, he served in the US Air Force during World War II. Invalided out after losing his legs, he became one of Kodak's first industrial designers in 1945. Between 1948 and 1958 Crapsey was credited with patents for a large number of cameras…” (Camera-wiki). 

Kodak Brownie Holiday. Image Source:
https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3324/3670649518_ec06edd276.jpg

But according to Camera-wiki and Mudd (2024) the cameras were both released in 1953. And both only lasted until 1962 (The Photo Nerd 2025). And according to BCG Film and Photography the Holiday cameras started using Kodet lenses from 1953-1955 and then Dakon in 1955-1963. And on this camera we can see that it says Kodet, meaning this camera came out somewhere in between 1952-1955.

But the Brownie Holiday camera’s design wasn’t just used for the Flash version, but it was used for the Brownie Bullet (1957), a “…promotional, or ‘premium’, exact copy of the Brownie Holiday camera…” (BCG Film and Photography), which is similar to the repurposed design of the Brownie Model 1 and the No.2 Brownie Model D.

Kodak Brownie Bullet. Image Source:
https://www.brownie-camera.com/13.jpg

Although the Bullet camera was labelled as Premium, it was actually a promotional item with the “…purposes often by third-party companies to encourage customers to take advantage of their goods or services. This illustrates marketing genius on Kodak's part. A third-party company benefits by selling their own product, the customer gets a free camera, and Kodak gains a new customer that will buy their film and process it!” (BCG Film and Photography).

The body of the Brownie Holiday was also sold under the name Brownie Chiquita (Camera-wiki), the Camera Brownie Chiquita and the Camera Brownie Chiquita Flash for the Brazilian market in 1957 (BCG Film and Photography).

Kodak Brownie Chiquita cameras. Image Source:
https://www.brownie-camera.com/15-2.jpg

Basically what I am getting at is that the Brownie Holiday Flash is the same as the Brownie Holiday, but with a flash attachment.

There isn’t much else. Unlike the Beau Brownie, the designer isn’t that well known and also Arthur Crapsey designed many cameras between 1948-1958, so this camera kind of blends into the sea of Brownie cameras. Similarly like the Instamatic 33.

But as Mudd (2024), points out this camera was quite popular back in its day. And honestly I can see why, because it is so easy to use, it is basically a 127 film point and shoot camera with four steps (wwwiebe 2019): “1. Point. 2. Shoot. 3. Forward. 4. Repeat.”

It also appears that this camera and all its counter parts and variations came in the same colour. And as for the name of the camera, I think it was named the Holiday because of its simplistic point and shoot design. As well as its size and weight, which is “7.6 cm H x 8.9 cm W x 6.4 cm D” (Science History Institute 2025) and 295g (Kamera Store 2025), making it ideal to take on vacation without taking up space or cumbersome to lug around.

This Holiday Flash came with the original box, although battered, is still pretty cool and eye catching with its iconic Kodak yellow (just like the Kodamatic 980L).

 

But this box is just the camera, flash sold separately. If you wanted the flash included one had to buy the bundle set known as the Holiday Flash Outfit (Chris & Carol 2020).

Holiday Flash Outfit box. Image Source:
https://yashicasailorboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dscf7619.jpg

Holiday Flash Outfit box contents. Image Source:
https://yashicasailorboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dscf7618.jpg

And as mentioned (in the Model 1 post), the name Brownie came from the Cox’s comics of the same name and featured characters from the comics on the advertising and boxes of some of the Brownie cameras. And for the Brownie Holiday Flash, one can find that a character, who I am guessing is the Uncle Sam character (Kovel, K & Kovel, T 2021) by the clothes that the character it is wearing, on the manual.

Holiday Flash Manual front cover. Image Source:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5accb37996e76f10e151b0f9/f96ccaf4-0eac-4fdf-b07f-9ab1fa6b270b/Holiday+Flash.jpg?format=2500w

Anyway let’s have a closer look at the camera itself. As mentioned it was released in 1953-1955 and we already know the weight and size. The body of this camera is “…brown Bakelite combined with silver with red accents just screamed 1950’s…” (Mudd 2024) as well as a metal faceplate (The Photo Nerd 2025).

Now let’s start with the front.

 The lens-

It has a Kodet 75mm lens with a fixed f/16 aperture. There isn’t much information on the Kodet lens, but what I could find is that it is a lens that is mostly used for beginner entry cameras, is most likely a “single meniscus type lens” (Camera-wiki) and is a single element coated lens with a fixed focus (Dennis 2019) and “Glass lenses don't get much cheaper than this - designed for those who didn't care to learn how to use a camera. These single element, fixed focus lenses lacked any sort of diaphragm control and were an alternative to multiple element adjustable lenses on the Tourist, Duaflex and numerous other Kodak cameras…” (Camera-wiki). 

Kodak Tourist. Image Source:
https://cdn.assets.lomography.com/5d/15674824469f5b14306fc938c68bb90748c988/251x375x2.jpg?auth=3399cdfbec6504a1a3fab0e4efbbf1f349d4a99a

Kodak Dualflex. Image Source:
https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3630/3356274181_b3434358bc_m.jpg

The fixed f/16 f/stop also suggests that when using the camera on a sunny day, the user should use the Sunny 16 rule (see my Argus A2B post).

Now for the Holiday cameras with the Dakon lens, there also isn’t a lot of information about this lens either, but all I found was that it according to Google’s AI Overview and Kodak’s track record, the Dakon is probably also just another single coated meniscus lens made in the 1950’s that was made from acrylic plastic (Camera-wiki).

Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash with a Dakon lens. Image Source:
https://kamerastore.com/products/kodak-brownie-holiday-flash#:~:text=Lens:%20Kodak%20~75cm%20~f16,Weight:%20295g

Then above the lens-

Is the “Simple eye-level” viewfinder (The Photo Nerd 2025), which much like the Instamatic 50, 104, the Kodak 35 RF and the Agfa Issolette I, is small and annoying. Which makes the feature listed on the box: “Large eye-level optical viewfinder” false!

On top-

Is the film advance knob.

And next to that is the shutter button/release.

This camera, like the other Brownie cameras (Brownie Model 1, No.2 and Beau Brownie, except for the Brownie 8mm 2.3 and 2.7) as well as the Halina Roy, Ensign All-20 and the Agfa 54, this camera has a Rotary shutter. This camera also has a single shutter speed anywhere between 1/30 and 1/40 second (Kamera Store 2025).

On the sides-

This is where one can find the slide locks, which hold the film compartment cover in place. And are released by just sliding it down until the cover is free.

These slide locks are also where the neck strap is attached to.

But on the right side in front of one of the locks is the “synchronized flash unit” (The Photo Nerd 2025) and socket.

And according to the manual, these cameras used the “Kodalite Midget; uses two 1 1/2-volt penlite batteries and M-2 lamps; socket adapter can be removed or use with No. 5 or 25 lamps.”

Kodalite Midget Flash. Image Source:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/7OMAAOSwt0phYIb4/s-l400.jpg

On the back-

Is the film compartment cover.

And on this cover is the red film counter window.

And above that is the small viewfinder.

The film compartment cover completely detaches from the main body, just like the box cameras, the Rondo Colormatic, the Agfa Clack and the Halina Roy.

 

Then finally the film compartment-

This compartment is similar to the Pucky I and Beau Brownie, in that the film carrier is attached to the main body and can’t be removed. The only difference is that the Holiday Flash’s film carrier moves the film horizontal (and moves right to left instead of left to right), instead of vertical.

The Holiday flash takes 127 film, making it a mini-cam (please see my Falcon F post). This camera has a negative size of 4 x 6.5 cm and can take up to 8 photos with the 127 film.

 

And to load the film is quite easy:

Pages 4-7 from the manual.

To learn about how film works, please see my 200 Color plus post.

And that is that. Another perfect example of Kodak’s brilliance and promise to make photography as easy as possible. If 127 film was still easily accessible, I would recommend that those wanting to venture into film, use this camera.

But just like the Instamatic cameras, getting the right film is going to be hard. So I will stick to saying that the best starting point for new film photographers are the point-and-shoot cameras, like the Sinpo PQ-3, the Praktica Sport AF or the Sounex YN9000.

But other than that, I really do love this camera. Its unique look and simple premise makes me wish that 127 film was still as widely available as 35mm. But if there was one thing I would change on the Holiday Flash, is that annoyingly small “Large eye-level optical” viewfinder!

But what are your thoughts? Do you think I am overreacting to the viewfinder? Do you want 127 film to make a comeback or is 35mm good enough? Or should we just let go of film already and embrace the digital age? Let me know in the comments.

And as always, thank you for making it to the end and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did researching it.

If you want to help this site out, please consider joining my Patreon: patreon.com/OnlineCurator

Please see the Please help this site post on this blog, for more information.

Or if you want to help in another way, please visit my Displate Store. Thank you for the support.

List of sources:

BCG Film & Photography. Brownie Bullet. https://www.brownie-camera.com/13.shtml

BCG Film & Photography. Brownie Chiquita Camera Camara Brownie Chiquita Camara Brownie Chiquita Flash. https://www.brownie-camera.com/15-2.shtml

BCG Film & Photography. Brownie Holiday Brownie Holiday Flash. https://www.brownie-camera.com/28.shtml

Camera-wiki. Arthur H Crapsey. https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Arthur_H_Crapsey

Camera-Wiki. Kodak Brownie Holiday. https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie_Holiday#:~:text=From%20Camera%2Dwiki.org,by%20Sylvain%20Halgand%20(in%20French)

Camera-wiki. Kodak Lenses. https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_lenses

Chris & Carol. Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash Outfit – 1956. https://yashicasailorboy.com/2020/01/25/kodak-brownie-holiday-flash-outfit-1956/

Dennis. 2019. … just a couple of Tourists. https://oldcam.wordpress.com/2019/11/30/just-a-couple-of-tourists/

Kamera Store. 2025. Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash – Camera. https://kamerastore.com/products/kodak-brownie-holiday-flash#:~:text=Lens:%20Kodak%20~75cm%20~f16,Weight:%20295g

Kovel, K & Kovel T. 2021. Brownies cartoon characters featured on trade cards, rubber stamps. https://www.farmforum.net/story/news/2021/09/13/brownies-cartoon-characters-featured-trade-cards-rubber-stamps/8255040002/

Monroe County GenWeb. Brownie Holiday Flash Manual. https://mcnygenealogy.com/book/kodak/brownie-holiday-flash-manual.pdf

Mudd, J. 2024. Another 1950's Bakelite Wonder – the Kodak Brownie “Holiday” Flash. https://www.jeremymuddphoto.com/blog/2023/7/26/another-1950s-bakelite-wonder-the-kodak-brownie-holiday-flash

Science History Institute. 2025. Kodak Brownie Holiday Flash Camera 1954 – 1962. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/mk61rg95s

The Photo Nerd. 2025. Kodak Holiday Flash. https://thephotonerd.ca/kodak-holiday-flash/

Wwwiebe. 2025. Brownie Holiday. https://actifit.io/wwwiebe/brownie-holiday