{"id":8093,"date":"2017-03-30T09:05:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T13:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=8093"},"modified":"2017-03-28T20:42:46","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T00:42:46","slug":"worlds-greatest-news-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/worlds-greatest-news-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"World&#8217;s Greatest News Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8095\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Mercury-II-camera-ad-1945.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8095\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8095\" src=\"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Mercury-II-camera-ad-1945-sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8095\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mercury II Camera Advertisement from 1945.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Toronto<\/strong>. I was sent this add two days ago in an email form George Dunbar. Very appropriate with our talk in a few weeks on journalism and photography. The American <a href=\"https:\/\/oldcameras.wordpress.com\/2009\/11\/25\/the-mercury-ii-\u2013-taking-pictures-with-a-63-year-old-\u201cclassic\u201d\/\">Mercury II<\/a> by the Universal Camera Company is depicted here.<\/p>\n<p>Universal thought very highly of itself as this 1945 ad shows. The ad suggests family shots in time supersede any news photos (especially if a Mercury II is\u00a0used).<\/p>\n<p>In real life the camera was a massive aluminum cast instrument with a somewhat odd focal plane shutter &#8211; you had to set it before you wound the camera for the next shot. I saw some examples years ago that suggested the <a href=\"http:\/\/licm.org.uk\/livingImage\/Universal_Mercury2.html\">Mercury II<\/a> was definitely NOT the camera of choice for a news (or family) photographer&#8230; The camera was big for a half-frame camera and had no rangefinder at all.<\/p>\n<p>The ad emphasizes the war effort put into researching a quality lens design. The standard lens for this half-frame 35mm camera was called a Tricor f\/2.7 or f\/3.5. A more expensive Hexar f\/2 could also be ordered. This camera was only marketed in 1945. Earlier versions\u00a0\u00a0also used Wollensak f\/3.5 lens (used by Leitz NY, too). The lenses were interchangeable.<\/p>\n<p>In the full size version of the ad, I cut it in two and placed the two parts side by side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto. I was sent this add two days ago in an email form George Dunbar. Very appropriate with our talk in a few weeks on journalism and photography. The American Mercury II by the Universal Camera Company is depicted here. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/worlds-greatest-news-photographer\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[978,972,398,1030],"class_list":["post-8093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camera","tag-978","tag-ad","tag-camera","tag-mercury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8093","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=8093"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8101,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8093\/revisions\/8101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}