Oppenheimer and Argus

[m42dave]

Interesting news story about a New Mexico, USA man who discovered famed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer captured in some old home movies.

If you look carefully at the video clip, Oppenheimer can be seen holding what looks like an Argus C3 camera.

 

[gary green]

You'd think the U. S. govt could have paid him enough to buy a Kodak Ektra, Bell & Howell Foton,  or a Kardon.

[Rick_van_Nooij]

Sure, but there's a matter of production numbers and availability at play here and if Oppenheimer was even remotely interested in actually owning an expensive camera. 🙂

[gary green]

It's also possible those expensive cameras were too complicated for him.  🤔

[tgh]

Definitely an Argus. The photo isn't clear enough to tell if the cocking lever on the front is chrome and the shutter button is the larger style (ironically in this case) called the Mushroom type, or if the lever is black and the shutter button is the stove pipe type.  So it could be a pre-war C2 or a post-war C3.

The truck shown in the clip of the parade looks like a 1950 GMC.

In 1939 an Argus C2 was list priced at $23.00, which would be $510.33 today, adjusted for inflation.  In 1951 an Argus C3 with flash was list priced at $69.50 which adjusts to $824.42 today.

Compared to a luxury model like a comparable vintage Leica IIIc or Leica IIIf, their functions would be similar.  Both had rangefinders in separate windows, both had knob film advance and rewind, both had manual focusing, aperture and shutter settings.  Neither had exposure meters. Both the C3 and IIIf had provisions for flash.  The Argus was much simpler to load with film, but did have the extra step of tensioning the shutter.

Among the people who were carrying cameras there that day, it's very likely most were box cameras of some type.  So an Argus C3 would have been quite a step above average.

Edited March 9 by tgh