{"id":13522,"date":"2019-01-04T07:21:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T11:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=13522"},"modified":"2019-01-03T22:48:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T02:48:31","slug":"through-the-glass-darkly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/through-the-glass-darkly\/","title":{"rendered":"through the glass darkly"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kalart Press camera 1948-53<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. As a kid I often saw ads for a Kalart after market rangefinder<\/a>. This little gadget was bolted on the side of a Speed Graphic. \u00a0I never thought of Kalart as a camera maker.<\/p>\n

At our Show and Tell 2018<\/em> this past December, one of our new members, a news photographer, showed his unusual alternative to a Speed Graphic.<\/p>\n

The Kalart<\/a> press camera is a beautiful looking camera with a 127mm Wollensak lens (like the one used in a Leica mount<\/a> and marked Leitz NY). The camera<\/a> was designed to correct all the known issues with the Speed Graphic. There were two viewers so either eye could be used, and two flash gun sockets. You can use a ground glass or a rangefinder (and a tiny spotlight in poor light). The lens can be removed but no alternatives were ever made by Kalart. They would however, customize a camera for a given lens if you sent camera and lens to them in NYC. The lens focal length appears in the bright frame as a reminder. Numerous clever circuits and mechanical gadgets stop you from making common errors with the camera. These protective devices make the camera more delicate to the uneducated user.<\/p>\n

But it had some other problems of its own. The hand hold was too small for a large male hand; no optional lenses were offered; and the cut film size of 3-1\/4 by 4-1\/4 inches didn’t meet with standards of the newspapers of the day which expected 4×5 inches cut film or plates from older\u00a0Speed Graphics. While gorgeous and well made, the Kalart was double the price of a Speed Graphic – about a third the cost of a new car at the time! The camera first came on the market in 1948 and lasted until 1953 when it disappeared into the mists of time.<\/p>\n

Thanks to PHSC member Davis Strong for this item. Oh, and the biblical title I used? Each viewfinder is totally dark with a bright line frame and rangefinder triangle. You have to use BOTH eyes to see the field of view and the frame – another problem with the Kalart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. As a kid I often saw ads for a Kalart after market rangefinder. This little gadget was bolted on the side of a Speed Graphic. \u00a0I never thought of Kalart as a camera maker. At our Show and Tell … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[2379,2378,327,1187],"class_list":["post-13522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camera","tag-127mm-lens","tag-kalart","tag-nyc","tag-wollensak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13522"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13530,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions\/13530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}