100-year-old photos found in antique cameras (sic)

Sirius Glass · Jan 13, 2013

Should read "camera".

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ArtO · Jan 13, 2013

That's a really great find. The pictures look to be in great shape.

tony lockerbie · Jan 13, 2013

Sirius Glass said:
Should read "camera".

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Well, it does have two lenses I'm figuring that is a stereo camera, don't know much about it...great find though. I always love looking at found films that are put up by Gene M over on Photo.Net.

Jeff Kubach · Jan 13, 2013

I like those photos!

Jeff

Sirius Glass · Jan 13, 2013

I believe that it is a twin lens reflex camera or a stereo camera without earphones.

sdotkling · Jan 13, 2013

Wait: it says the buyer opened the camera and found the pictures 'already developed.' Huh? Who puts developed film back in the camera? Some old mail-order developing scheme?

Sirius Glass · Jan 13, 2013

The first instant film camera. It predated Polaroid.

polyglot · Jan 13, 2013

sdotkling said:
Wait: it says the buyer opened the camera and found the pictures 'already developed.' Huh? Who puts developed film back in the camera? Some old mail-order developing scheme?

This has me quite puzzled. Why put developed film back in the camera? They're clearly negs, so you're not going to view it in there or something.

I could imagine maybe the film printed-out after a century maybe? But it'd still need fixing.

jimjm · Jan 13, 2013

These images were actually discovered by APUG member Anton Orlov, when he opened up a Jumelle Bellieni stereo camera he found at an L.A. area antique store. These cameras have a magazine that can hold several glass plates and apparently the previous owner stored a set of fully-developed plates in the camera before putting it away in storage, possibly to keep the plates from being damaged. It seems that the camera has remained in storage ever since.

Anton runs a rental darkroom facility here in San Diego called Rollov Film Center, and recently converted a school bus as a mobile darkroom facility to tour the country and spread the word about analog photography.

TomNY · Jan 13, 2013

I read an article, I can't remember where, that said that later users of that particular camera sometimes used negatives (are they glass?) as a backing to help keep flexible film flat.

E. von Hoegh · Jan 14, 2013

jimjm said:
These images were actually discovered by APUG member Anton Orlov, when he opened up a Jumelle Bellieni stereo camera he found at an L.A. area antique store. These cameras have a magazine that can hold several glass plates and apparently the previous owner stored a set of fully-developed plates in the camera before putting it away in storage, possibly to keep the plates from being damaged. It seems that the camera has remained in storage ever since.

Anton runs a rental darkroom facility here in San Diego called Rollov Film Center, and recently converted a school bus as a mobile darkroom facility to tour the country and spread the word about analog photography.

Something's wrong - actually a couple things are wrong. Those aren't stereo plates. The aircraft dates from probably the last year or two of WWI, so less than 100yrs. The bomb is late-ish, too.

removed account4 · Jan 14, 2013

i think the photographs were stuck in the camera for safe keeping
and the seller had no idea there were prints stored in his stereo camera ( Bellini Jumelle )
when he opened it it showed only one side exposing ...
there is a probably a plate he can remove to make it full-stereo

nice find

jimjm · Jan 14, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
Something's wrong - actually a couple things are wrong. Those aren't stereo plates. The aircraft dates from probably the last year or two of WWI, so less than 100yrs. The bomb is late-ish, too.

There's at least one set of stereo images, but it appears that the rest are just individual plate negatives. A quick Google search on this camera indicates that it used 24 half-size plates to obtain 12 stereo images, via a rather complex mechanism to cycle the exposed/unexposed plates inside the magazine.

Don't know about the age of the aircraft and bomb, but a number of media outlets have incorrectly reported these images as being over 100 years old, when the negatives could have been made as late as 1918, or even a few years immediately after the war.

E. von Hoegh · Jan 14, 2013

jimjm said:
There's at least one set of stereo images, but it appears that the rest are just individual plate negatives. A quick Google search on this camera indicates that it used 24 half-size plates to obtain 12 stereo images, via a rather complex mechanism to cycle the exposed/unexposed plates inside the magazine.

Don't know about the age of the aircraft and bomb, but a number of media outlets have incorrectly reported these images as being over 100 years old, when the negatives could have been made as late as 1918, or even a few years immediately after the war.

Yes, I doubt they're aware that WWI was fought from August 1914 to November 1918. Add the media penchant for hyperbolic manure and this is what you get.

100-year-old photos found in antique cameras (sic)

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