a c1939 Studio S-11 Deardorff camera (catalogue photo)
Toronto. Issue 18-1, back in 1992, featured a lengthy copyrighted article by Ken Hough called, “Deardorff Designed Cameras, A Short History”.
Ken’s fully illustrated article gives a fine overview of this famous name in photographic history. He begins his article thus, “In any story about a manufacturing firm, one has to realize that there’s always a driving force behind the company. That driving force was a man by the name of Laben F. Deardorff. For the sake of simplicity. since his company’s name was L.F. Deardorff and Sons, we will call him L.F.
“L.F. started out as a camera repairman. He worked on bellows cameras, which in the 1880’s, were the usual type of camera in use. He gained a certain notoriety for interesting modifications of these cameras. Modifying Ansco cameras to have swings and tilts as we know them today, he also designed and built a few of his own; then he went to work for Rochester Optical company in the design department.
“There, he helped design the Premo cameras. LF did not necessarily design the entire line, but was a major contributor to certain features. The rear swings and tilts were his design.
“He then went to Chicago, working at a camera store selling and modifying equipment. He also noticed a certain lack of optical movements in professional cameras. These were the Ansco, Kodak, and various other view cameras. These had the rear movements necessary for architectural correction, but the actual movement of the rear part of the camera was not enough for good perspective control.
“He set about creating a folding field camera that was compact, had long bellows. and all the necessary rear movements for corrective photography; for example, rear swing, left and right, and rear tilt, forward and backwards. In addition to these movements, the camera also would have front tilt, rising and falling lens board, and rising and falling front base.”
Members went on to read this article to the end in either hard copy or more recently the pdf file of issue 18-1 on the members-only DVD. No DVD? Not a member? It’s easy and inexpensive – see above or at right for details. Questions? Send Lilianne a message at member@phsc.ca.
Like Deardorff cameras? Checkout our fall estate(s) auction November 24th. You may not see a Deardorff but you will see lots of gear to augment your collection or user stuff (and maybe for a Xmas gift or two).
