Syd Sobel kicked the evening off with an anecdote about modern cameras with auto features and tied the modern day cameras to the old with accessories of yesterday which enhanced his 50 year old Leica IIIc . Flash synchronization was added to this camera courtesy of Geiss and its little two part external sync and connector mechanism. Metering, with a bit of calculation was provided by a Kopil meter. A Leica 9cm or 13.5cm lens could be added to the Kopil meter to transform it into a modern day spot meter.

John Linsky always finds the unusual and tonight was no different. He brought along a Thompson tintype camera c1915 with typed instruction sheet and catalogue (lens 50 cents extra). The camera uses a version of the Kerr bottle and a mono bath process to create a bleached positive tintype on the spot while the itinerant photographer's customer waited.

Robert Gutteridge showed a rare Movette 17.5mm film amateur motion picture system. It cost $150 in 1917 for camera, projector, tripod and film. It was hand cranked (no spring with an awkwardly placed handle which made it impractical to attempt hand held shots. Each cycle of the crank was one frame so the average scene was shot at 16 cranks per second. A simple Newtonian viewfinder was used to frame the scene. The camera was the first amateur camera with a magazine load. The film was nitrate based B&W non-reversible (you developed the negative film then printed to get a positive). Being nitrate based, examples of the magazine, which Robert displayed are even harder to find than the camera! The system was killed by the Pathé 9.5 (Europe) and Kodak, B&H, 16mm (America) cameras which used reversible film for cheaper operation. The awkward crank position was due to placement of the magazine beside the shutter mechanism resulting in an awkward flipping of the film to cross the gate at right angles to the magazine.

Les Jones showed a recently published Canadian soccer history which used old images including some from member collections. Les announced a database of old images was being assembled for use in similar projects and he encouraged all image collectors to have their old image collections listed for use in publications.

Stan White brought a selection of modern amateur stereo imagery including a selection of Christmas cards he has received over the years.

Ev Roseborough reminded us that some very complex lenses are used in microscopy. Ev passed around a forty power flat field highly corrected plan-apochromatic microscope objective plus a large scale cross section diagram showing the complex profusion of lenses stacked up inside the 35mm cassette sized barrel, including a pin head size front lens element.

Bob Wilson passed around Arriflex caps and was seeking opinions about their purpose ( consensus was that they were dust covers to protect part of the camera mechanism. Bob also showed a rare Wittnauer Cine-Twin combination 8mm camera and projector made by the famous watch company for sale only through jewellery shops. The product was a dud and disappeared a year after it was introduced in 1957.

Fred Hunt told us some tales about the days of tall ships along with images he shot at a Georgian Bay Tall Ships ceremony which celebrated the completion of the replicated HMS Tecumseh which was warranted by the Queen in 1990. Dr Tom Spalding a Royal Navy doctor training at the Arthritis and Orthopedic Hospital on Wellesley represented the Queen. Fred wrapped up by showing us an original MacAskill image bought after a no bid at a Toronto Camera Club auction.

Ron Anger brought a small telescope/ transit affair made by Realist, the 3-D camera folk. No one could suggest its use for certain.

Bob Lansdale showed two old brass barrel lenses engraved with the name of a photographic dealer on Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario (F. A. Mulholland & Co.). The lens shown below is a 15 inch "Lightning" Rapid Rectilinear f/8 to f/64.  If you have other examples of Canadian Lenses, please get in touch with Bob at bob.lansdale@1staccess.ca. Bob wants other examples for a forthcoming Photographic Canadiana article. 

Our wrap up speaker was program director Mike Robinson. Mike brought along his working reproduction of an E & H T Anthony 1848 chamfered daguerreotype camera. Mike made the camera from photos and precise measurements of the original. He included the interior sliding box which permits a range of settings from portrait to close up and added a c1861 Petzval portrait lens by Voigtlander. Mike pointed out that this lens at its infinity setting actually focuses at infinity on the camera attesting to the precision of the lens and the original camera construction. Mike noted the chemical vs. visual lens settings vary by a small fraction of an inch (caused by the sensitivity of the plate to blue light vs. the eye’s broader sensitivity and the imperfect correction of lens from that era.

The images on this page were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 900s digital camera directly from the screen during the video. As a result, while the images are acceptable on the web, they are not suitable for printing. I did considerable adjustment to the images to compensate for a combination of the slow speed of the camera and the quality of the video image. The darkroom I use is Corel Photo-Paint, a very able competitor to Adobe Photoshop. Its a pleasure to be able to adjust the image parameters and see the effect instantly on screen. 

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by Robert Carter