Your strangest camera?

P.S. And it takes regular 8mm film, which you can't find. :-(

Red, 8/8 film is still available. The way things are going, it will be around long after super 8 had died completely.

 

I've thought of another oddity growing dust in a corner of our master bedroom. A Shackman Automatic Dial Recording Camera. This was made for the Admiralty -- yes, Royal Navy -- and was intended to be bolted to a bulkhead. Its case is solid steel, the mounting bracket alone weighs nearly 10 (ten) pounds. The one I have shoots 220 film. Its gate is roughly 50 mm square. It has electric motor driven film advance. Its lens is a 47/5.6 Super Angulon in a #00 Prontor Press shutter. The shutter is actuated by a solenoid. Lens and shutter are on a focusing mount with provision for collimating the lens to the camera. The one part missing is a device for focusing through the lens.

 

According to Shackman's current owners, the camera was made to record the results of gunnery practice. The original version used a Dallmeyer wide angle lens and used film supplied by Ilford in special cassettes. When Dallmeyer stopped supplying lenses the SA was adopted. And when Ilford stopped supplying film, the camera was adapted, poorly, to use 220 film. The takeup spool rotates the same amount each frame, so early frames overlap and late frames have larger spaces than needed between 'em.

 

As received the camera couldn't be used as intended. Its control box, was built into the ship it was used on, and I bought the camera but not the ship. I could have used the camera manually, although its size and weight make shooting it handheld pretty silly. Instead I extracted the lens, which I use on my Century Graphic. Its a perfectly normal 47/5.6 Super Angulon and is, as everyone says, very good indeed.

Ansco Clipper 620<div></div>

Clipper extended for action<div></div>

I have a different model Samoca, but it has the 3.5 Ezumar lens, speeds only to 1/100. I also have a "Fex" Elite, which I ended up paying way to much for($35 or something); and--m' pride & joy, the ole reliable Dick Tracy which has been used to solve more crimes than you might imagine.

 

Sadly I have not been able to acquire a Fearless Fosdick.<div></div>

My strangest camera is a VP Univex-Iris made by Universal Camera Corp., sporting a f7.9 Vitar lens with apertures from f7.9 to f22, mounted on a simple Ilex shutter. It is built around a pretty Art-Deco motif but, made entirely of pot metal thus, it weighs "a ton".

In answer to those who've asked about the big black camera, it was a US Air Force 5-481 aerial reconnaissance camera. It took 2 rolls of 9" wide roll film and exposed two 9" x 9" images at right angles to each other, simultaneously. The lenses are 153mm f/3.5 Bausch & Lomb wide angles, and one click of the shutters yielded a horizon-to-horizon view with the camera pointed straight down. It included an internal motor drive, and the shutters were electrically operated - all at 28 volts. The film planes both had glass plates in them to hold the film flat. There was no adjustment for focus, and I don't think there was any for aperture or shutter speed either.

 

I bought it brand new for $60 in 1979 from a surplus place, and it arrived in a wooden crate. I never did take a picture with it - i used it as a night stand for a couple of years before selling it to a guy who actually, honest to gosh planned to mount it in his Cessna and take photos with it. Never heard how that worked out.....

 

rick :)=

Not so strange looking, but strangely designed - mine is a German-made Iloca Rapid from the 1950's. A scale focusing 35mm, which like Mike's Samoca, really isn't that bad of a performer. Outwardly it looks like many other similar cameras from the same time. But what's really odd about is both the hinged film advance lever AND the rewind knob are on the left end of the camera. The film cassette also fits in the left end, with the take up spool on the right. But the shutter release button is on the right. The viewfinder is slightly right of center.

 

So it's really a two-handed camera. You advance the film with your left thumb, trip the shutter with your right index finger, then when you're finished you've got to pull the rewind knob up slightly, so you can get some clearance from the film advance lever that sits up against it, to rewind the film. What looks like the rewind knob on the right end of the camera, is just a fixed knurled ring around the frame counter.

 

Then to add the final bit of strangeness, the largest ring, closest to the camera body around the lens mount where it's the easiest to get ahold of is the aperture ring. The shutter ring is ahead of it. And the focusing ring is the tiniest ring at the very front of the lens. Really an awkward camera to use.

Hey, I found another one hiding in the entertainment center. One Minute 16. Now that is a strange little camera. Especially this paticular example - no corrosion!

Kirk wrote:"I have the same camera Kai, but I put my Leica Hektor 135 on it."<P>

 

Question, the LTM Leica Hektor 135mm lens certainly can be mounted on

the Great Wall, however, Leica / Great Wall have different flange to

film plane distance, can the Hektor focus to infinity on the Great

Wall ?

My strangest camera is a made in Germany Chadt Cam Watch camera<div></div>

Hello, besides my Univex Iris made of pot metal, I found 2 other cameras in my "accumulation". 1- A 6x9 Art-Deco Zeiss Ikonta Simplex 511/2 made entirely of Bakelite with some metal in the critical points. Sports an uncoated 10.5/6.3 Nettar-Anastigmat, and has a real leather bellows. 2- A 35mm Zeiss Ikon Ikonette made of high impact plastic with a 45mm/3.5 Novar Anastigmat.

There were several versions of this camera. I first had the pre WWII version with an uncoated Kodak Anastigmat Special. I recently reviewed some of the slides that I took with it back in the '40s. Those that hadn't faded, or were obviously out of focus, were sharp. Later I bought the RF version with a coated lens. It was even sharper! Well, they were based on the classic Tessar formula. I would put them up there with the Leitz Elmar!

Kai, I have a Kilfit 600mm f/5.6 that would really make that Great Wall stand out. If you have the strength to pick the thing up to use it, that is. It is one huge lens.