Nine Members do a Show and Tell

Show and Tell is always a popular evening. The December 2001 event featured nine members showing a wide range of interesting cameras, accessories, and images. Each speaker is represented with images on his own page. Click a name in the column to the right or in the text below. Some pages have links to other sites for more information. Bob Wilson co-ordinated the evening in the absence of our program director, Gerry Loban.

First up was President Bill Kantymir with the tale of his search for a Kodak Super Six-20 clam shell camera. The tale was an example of McKeown's Law and a couple of corolleries in action!

Ed Warner took over next, showing his two home-made 4x5 cameras. Ed is an electrician by trade, and enjoys working with wood. He showed lots of creativity in getting his two cameras to function with accurate focussing and framing.

Larry Boccioletti then shifted us over to a disappearing aspect of photography, the flash bulb. Larry has used thousands of bulbs over the years and is a source of these little bits of history for movie productions.

Then Fred Hunt gave us a fascinating tale from World War II about the interpretation of reconnaisence photos. He selected a story from the pocket book "Torpedo Bombers!", a story of a raid on the German battle cruiser Gneisenau while it was in dry dock at Brest, France in 1941. Links are included for added information on both the harbour and the ship.

Ron Anger took over next with a neat segway to a Torpedo Camera -- used by the U.S. Navy to take panorama shots. The camera is from World War II and was sold after the war slightly modified for civilian use.

Mike Robinson then shifted us back to the beginnings of photography with the presentation of four of his favourite Daguerreotype images. The catch was that these were modern Daguerreotpes take by Mike who is a modern day professional Daguerreotypist. Mike included the story of his invitation to take a Daguerreotype of an actual operation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for Discovery Magazine.

Robert Gutteridge, our authority on matters cinematic, displayed a rare Edison Home Kinetoscope and provided details on why this piece of movie history failed in the marketplace, but nevertheless helped to preserve an important element of movie history -- Edison's early catalogue of feature movies.

I (Bob Carter) then spoke for a few minutes on one of my favourite Leica accessories, the Stereoly attachment used to make stereo images with any screw mount Leica and 50mm lens in the 1930s.

And ending the evening, our moderator, Bob Wilson showed a Zoetrope, an early toy for showing animated images. We often see pictures of this optical toy, and occasionally modern day examples offered at museums. Bob's example was an authentic Zoetrope from the late 1800s complete with an image strip.

Bob Carter

Speakers