Category Archives: history

a pro’s pro line

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. In North America, most newshounds or wanna be’s used one brand of camera and accessories: Graflex. In the International Photographer for March 1941 on page 17, Folmer Graflex touted its line of cameras and accessories as ‘prize winning’ and … Continue reading →

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we owe a lot to the movies

Posted on December 5, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. In 1932, Hollywood released the first movie shot in Technicolor’s three strip process. The shot here is via TCM and Sony TV and shows Jeanette MacDonald in a scene from the movie “Sweethearts”.  This was the first color film … Continue reading →

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Sonochrome, oh Sonochrome, where are you?

Posted on December 2, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Silent movies used colour tints to evoke moods – indoors, outdoors, creepy, fire, etc. When talkies came along, tints affected the sound recording. A solution by Kodak was their Sonochrome black and white film with a tinted base that … Continue reading →

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gifts, Kodak, f/2 again

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Big Yellow Father was hitting on all cylinders when advertising for Christmas in the  January, 1934 issue of Popular Mechanics (page 114A and 115A in the Advertising section of the magazine) released before Christmas, 1933 of course. The ad … Continue reading →

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Curious Curtis Captures Indians

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. The late John Craig was a vendor at our early fairs. One one occasion, John commented about Edward  S. Curtis. One night, after doing our fair, John visited Barberian’s on Elm Street for a steak. To his delight, there … Continue reading →

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mounting a standard

Posted on November 27, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. A camera’s lens mount does many things: keeps the film to lens distance unchanged in spite of 1,000s of lens changes so one can reliably focus to infinity at any aperture opening; keeps the lens firmly attached to the … Continue reading →

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photographs at a museum

Posted on November 26, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. The Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK has a long and storied history.  The V&A has collected photographs for many decades (since 1852!). The image at left is a photograph of the notorious Christine Keeler taken in 1963 by … Continue reading →

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when f/2 was super fast

Posted on November 25, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. In the 1930s, the films and plates were very slow by today’s standards. Normal lenses were usually around f/3.5. To help this lack of sensitivity, Leitz designed a new lens around 1933. The 6 element lens was a modified … Continue reading →

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an early marketing phrase …

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. In the 1930s, the minicam rage was taking off, so how could you differentiate one camera from another? Leitz chose to call its camera an AUTOFOCAL camera in advertisements in various early 1930s magazines. An example is this small … Continue reading →

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Kodak – not just photo supplies and cheap cameras

Posted on November 22, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. We often think of Kodak in the film days as a maker of films and other photographic supplies along with a multitude of inexpensive cameras, both still and movie, and other accessories, projectors, etc. However, Kodak also made a … Continue reading →

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