While lots of people of a certain age will remember their Brownie Reflex and Kodak Duaflex cameras, many fewer will remember that Kodak made an advanced twin lens reflex. Introduced just after WWII, the Reflex was produced until 1954 in the mark II version. Priced from $100-161 over its production run, it competed with low-end Rolleis.

Unlike the design of most other twin lens reflexes which mount both lenses on a movable lens board, the Kodak Reflex lenses are permanently mounted on the chassis. Both elements have gears machined in their outer rims so that the front cell focusing is precisely linked. I suspect this reduced manufacturing costs considerably. To those who grew up using Rolleis and Yashicas, this focusing operation will seem unintuitive, but when the Kodak Reflex was designed, the moving lens board was not nearly as firmly entrenched. Also consider that the focusing strategy that has been adopted for most non-TLR cameras has been user-rotated knurled lens rings. With its long history of front-cell focusing folders, this would have been a natural alternative for Kodak designers. On the Kodak Reflex II, the lens identification is not stamped or engraved on the retaining ring for the front element, but on on the outer metal rim of the lens tubes. The retaining ring for the front cell is not threaded as is normal, but is held in with four machine screws spaced around the beveled surface of the ring. I've never had this apart, so I can offer an opinion about this unusual design. These Anastars were produced without serial numbers. There are serial numbers, however, on the camera body, stamped on the tripod mount. Since Kodak seldom included body serial numbers, the numbering protocol is another mystery.

The lenses for the Kodak Reflex are of an unusual design for Kodak. The 80mm f /3.5 Anastar is a four element/four group air-spaced design, similar to that of the early Ernostars and later Sonnars. This design was originally used to increase the aperture of a triplet by adding an additional positive meniscus element between the front two elements in the triplet design. The most notable early lens to use this design was the f /2.0 Ernostar mounted on the Ermanox used by Erich Solomon, generally credited with developing modern candid photography. It isn't clear why Kodak adopted this design, since it produced a relatively large lens; the front element of the 80mm f /3.5 Anastar is about 35mm diameter, about the same size as the front element of the 100mm f /3.5 Ektar, a Heliar design, use on the Medalist. Kodak's other venture into the 6x6 market, the Kodak Chevron, a MF rangefinder design, used a 78mm f /3.5 Ektar, with a Tessar design, with a much smaller diameter. While the Reflex II was produced until 1954, the 80mm f /3.5 Anastar was not listed in the 1952 Kodak Data Book, Lenses, Shutter, and Portra Lenses. Lenses on all Reflexs were Lumenized. The shutter on the Reflex is a Kodamatic on the original, with speeds of 1 sec to 1/200. The Reflex II got synchronization with its Flash Kodamatic and a top speed of 1/300.

The Kodak Reflex uses 620 film, like all Kodak rollfilm cameras producing a 2 1/4 wide negative. Film advance is coupled to shutter cocking, and while the Reflex has a ruby window to check the numbers on the backing paper, it also has a toothed film roller that controls a film index mechanism on the right side of the camera.

This was not the system camera that the Rolleis became. Other than adapter rings and filters and a case, I believe the only accessory was an 828 adapter kit with a mask and film roller converter.