Can anyone identify this camera?

[Citsmith]

My grandfather was in the Navy Medical Corps and traveled a lot as a young man. In Later life he had a Graflex RB but in this picture he has some other camera. It might be a large roll film format as I have a lot of negatives of the far east that are thin and nominally larger than 4 x 5.
Thanks,

 

[mshchem]

Is it a Cirkut camera?

 

[Citsmith]

I don’t think so. It has a lens door that opens to the side, what looks like wind knobs on the top and the shutter release seems to be on the side. I think it may have been a large size of roll film.

 

[Kino]

Calling @Ian Grant!

Bet he as a good idea of what camera this is!

 

[Zathras]

Just a wild guess here, but I'm thinking it could be an early Graflex SLR that did not have a rotating back, turned on its side to take a vertical picture.

Speed Graphics do not have rotating backs, so they have have two tripod mounts so the camera can be rotated 90 degrees to shoot vertically or horizontally.
I don't know if this also applied to the older, non RB, cameras, but it would make sense.

I think that this could possibly be what's happening in this picture.

 

[MTGseattle]

Is it a Luzo of some type?

 

[reddesert]

If you measure the image area of some of the larger negatives, that would help to figure out the roll film format and narrow it down. At a guess, it might be 3.25 x 5.5", also called "postcard size," which is Kodak 3A or 122 roll film. However, sheet film in film packs was also on a thinner base than normal sheet film. Kodak 3A folding cameras are fairly common, but this doesn't look like a typical Kodak Folding 3A - it's a lot larger top to bottom and side to side.

Graflex also made a camera for 3A rollfilm, http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/3A_Graflex , but it doesn't look like that either.

Of course it could be interesting to see some of the images from the negatives if you're willing to post any of them.

 

[Citsmith]

The negatives are thin film, not sheet film. They are 4.6” wide and 6” long. The date on them is 1913.

 

[Don_ih]

negatives are thin film

Film packs used thin sheet film.

 

[gorbas]

jimgalli is the guy for this task

 

[MarkS]

It's not a Graflex SLR, and I've never seen or heard of that film size. A real mystery.

 

[Don_ih]

They are 4.6” wide and 6” long.

How big is the image on the negatives and are they all the same size? Is there any chance those are copy negatives?

However, it would not be impossible that the camera was unique and the film had to be cut down from larger sheet sizes to fit in it. That would be a pain, of course.

Also, being that old, the film is very likely nitrate.

 

[Citsmith]

The images are all the same size and there are a lot of them. There are no notches like sheet film and the short sides seem to be cut as the long sides seem very straight. The camera in the photo seems to have film knobs on each side of the top. The camera could be foreign as he traveled a lot at that time. It seems like 4.6” roll film. The color of the film base looks like nitrate stock.

Thank you for your suggestions

 

[Citsmith]

There is a film shown as introduced in 1906 as 126 (not instamatic i assume) which is 4-1/4” X 6-1/2” roll film.

 

[Dustin McAmera]

126 roll is roughly a roll-film equivalent of half-plate: the plates are 4¾x6½-inch.


Looking at the photo, I wonder if it might be an SLR, but turned on its side (suggesting it doesn't have a rotating back).
He seems to be holding a handle on the left of the picture, attached to what would normally be the top of the camera, which would be a folded-down reflex hood. To use the camera like that, he'd have to be using it as a view camera, with a rear ground glass. If my idea is right, the front of the camera isn't racked out at all.

The flap lens-cover on an SLR usually (but not always) opens upwards to form a simple shade, as we see it.

My idea runs into trouble then. Those knobs on the top (the top as we see it) have to be a knob for the rack-and-pinion (on our right) and a winder for a focal-plane shutter (on our left). But if we set the camera upright, they'd be on the left side of the camera, and the shutter winder is 'always' on the right (my Ensign Reflex has a focus knob on each side; don't know if all other cameras do). So I think my idea depends on the photograph having been reversed left-right.

 

[reddesert]

I was having trouble with the camera-on-its-side idea earlier because of the handedness of the knobs - the shutter controls as you say should always be on the right. However, the image could be mirror reversed. The buttons on his jacket are on the left hand piece of fabric, while normally they would be on the right hand for a man's jacket. (I have no idea if Navy uniforms of the era were different, but there are people who study that kind of minutiae so probably someone knows.)

 

[Citsmith]

I would now say that it may be a 4A Speed Kodak mounted on its side. The film size is about correct for 26/126A film at 4 1/4 X 6 1/2 and the time is about right. There may be some sort of lens hood on the lens. I agree with reddesert that it is probably flipped in the scan. There may have been similar large roll film cameras using the 126 film but I have not found them. I don’t know who actually took the photo as it is a smaller format.

Thanks for all the input.
H.

 

[Dwight Anderson]

I have a 4A folding Kodak, and the spool measures 4.875" on the inside, so 126 film could be correct. But it is not a speed Kodak, the handle is oriented the wrong way and if the picture is flipped, on the wrong side as well.

 

[reddesert]

The body of the camera is both longer and wider than the door. That's one reason I don't think it's a simple folding rollfilm camera like a 4A Speed Kodak. Those are only a bit wider than the fold-out door - the whole thing is just wide enough to contain the spools. Also the lens, what we can see of it, looks maybe more like an SLR lens than a lens in shutter, but that is ambiguous.

If you look at for example the gallery of SLRs at earlyphotography.co.uk, http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/j_chap.html which is understandably tilted toward UK-made cameras, there are some SLRs that look vaguely similar (if tipped on side) but don't quite match. Some of them are made for half-plate plates, I didn't notice any for equivalent rollfilm, but didn't look at everything. I don't know of an equal gallery for US-made early large rollfilm cameras and SLRs.

 

[Don_ih]

I think it's a tropical box slr.. Houghton made ones similar to that (but I can't find one exactly like it).

 

[Kino]

Personally, I too have been leaning toward a British manufacture origin for the camera, but have found no visual proof to back up that theory.

Zooming in as much as possible on the scan before it breaks-up into large pixels, it appears to be a wooden body camera or a wooden enclosure (weather proofing?) with a camera inserted. Of course, it could be a light colored leather covering, but that's really hard to tell; joins in the planes of the body look like wood.

The thing that keeps me intrigued, is that the lens door/cover appears to be curved. Surely that should be a unique identifier, but have run across no such style in perusing the antique camera catalogs posted on various parts of the Internet.

If it were a custom weather "blimp" or cover, we probably will never really know what type of camera resides within.

 

[MattKing]

Just because it makes it a bit easier:

Yes - upsized and sharpened heavily.

 

[Dwight Anderson]

I was trying to determine if the photo is flipped, and I believe I found some evidence it is. Before 1941 the navy eagle insignia was commonly facing left, afterwards it is always facing the wearers right. His cap has the eagle facing right, so along with his buttons being on the wrong side it's a good bet it's reversed.

 

[Kino]

If you assume the width of the man's hand at 4 to 4.5 inches, that makes the case between 9 and 10 inches tall (wide if on side).

That's a substantial size camera...

 

[Citsmith]

It is a lot like a Graflex Series II “lunch box” camera except for the way the lens door opens.