Old Cameras in Old Movies

MattKing · May 30, 2020

Sadly, The trailer I can access is only 16 seconds long - different licensing in Canada.
I should take a photo some time of the Raymond Burr theatre in his birthplace, New Westminster, BC!

drkhalsa · Jun 6, 2020

This is an episode of Murder City I was watching on Amazon Prime.
I noted what looks like the Pentax 6x7, but the sound of the shutter was in NO WAY the big Pentax! LOL!

cooltouch · Jun 9, 2020

Yeah, the sound effects, especially on TV, can get rather cheesy. I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody using a digital camera but the sound effects are from a Nikon MD4 or MD12, both of which have unique sounds.

AgX · Jun 10, 2020

I would say, right camera sound is the exception in those movies who got the complete soundtrack in studio.

Kodachromeguy · Jun 14, 2020

At breakfast, I saw an Argus C3 in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." I was amazed to find a web page about it:

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Colin_Creevey's_camera

I am a bit surprised to see a U.S. Camera in a UK-based story, but that is OK.

drkhalsa · Jun 14, 2020

cooltouch said:
Yeah, the sound effects, especially on TV, can get rather cheesy. I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody using a digital camera but the sound effects are from a Nikon MD4 or MD12, both of which have unique sounds.

AgX said:
I would say, right camera sound is the exception in those movies who got the complete soundtrack in studio.

I couldn't say for sure which camera sound was used. I use a Pentax 6x7 so I'm familiar with its shutter.
I thought the shutter sound used was a modern electronic camera.

Donald Qualls · Jun 14, 2020

Kodachromeguy said:
At breakfast, I saw an Argus C3 in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." I was amazed to find a web page about it:

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Colin_Creevey's_camera

I am a bit surprised to see a U.S. Camera in a UK-based story, but that is OK.

The Argus C family were popular in North America and Europe; they were a very functional 35mm RF with good lenses (technically all with interchanging lenses, though it was a bit fiddly to install the lens and get the RF properly synchronized) that were sold at quite a reasonable price. The movie prop was most likely chosen for its "clunky old Muggle camera" look, including the bulb flash with its big reflector. That camera would have been 30-40 years old during the setting time of the Potter movies (mid-1990s), closer to 50 when the movies were produced.

AgX · Jun 14, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
The Argus C family were popular in North America and Europe.

Well, so far I have not come across a sample of the Argus. And within Germany no Brownie either.

Donald Qualls · Jun 14, 2020

Germany had so many native camera options between the wars that Kodak actually bought Nagel (hence the German-built Kodak Retina) rather than try to penetrate that market.

Kodachromeguy · Jun 14, 2020

I found another good one. In the 1978 version of The Big Sleep, starring Robert Mitchum, the young lady (Candy Clark!) is being photographed in the buff by the pornographer with a Hasselblad camera. In the 1946 version with Humphrey Bogart, the camera was disguised inside of a statue, but in this 1978 version, it is out in the open on a tripod. Later in the movie, someone comes into the house and kills the guy by removing the film back and bashing his head in. Those Hasselblad backs are pretty strong, so yes, you probably could mash someone's skull with one. There is a technical flaw in the movie: the snapshots are rectangle. With the Hasselblad, I assume prints would be square, although they certainly may have been cropped or the photographer may have used the A12V back.

AgX · Jun 20, 2020

Unidentified SLR

Definitely a WLF type, but used as being a prism type...

"Der Mann, der den Eiffelturm verkaufte" crime-comedy , West-Germany , 1970

Donald Qualls · Jun 21, 2020

AgX said:
Unidentified SLR

Definitely a WLF type, but used as being a prism type...

"Der Mann, der den Eiffelturm verkaufte" crime-comedy , West-Germany , 1970

Looks like an early Exakta. I've got a (non-working) Praktica in the same layout, it appears the ground glass was strictly for focusing with a magnifier, and then you'd use the sports finder frame to actually compose/frame the shot. He doesn't have that open, though...

AgX · Jun 21, 2020

You are right, it is the 1961 model of the Exakta Varex IIa. This renewed model got the different apron, lettering and finder.
The hint at the Exakta is the glossy point up the left side of the lens, the release button.

Donald Qualls said:
...it appears the ground glass was strictly for focusing with a magnifier, and then you'd use the sports finder frame to actually compose/frame the shot. He doesn't have that open, though...

At this 1961 model there even was no sports finder feature any more.

Donald Qualls · Jun 21, 2020

AgX said:
The hint at the Exakta is the glossy point up the left side of the lens, the release button.

My first SLR (back in 1973 or so) was an Exa II. It had a prism finder. apparently far enough back to be marked "Germany, USSR Occupied" as an overstamp (probably assembled post-War from pre-War parts). If the Varex was still waist-level as late as 1961, it must have been a preference for some users.

AgX · Jun 21, 2020

Since 1950 the Exakta had exchangable finders, thus a prism was available, but that of course was pricey.

That ""Germany, USSR Occupied" of course was not original, but made by the US importer, unless the sample being from pre-1949.

chuck3565 · Jun 21, 2020

AgX said:
Praktica or Exakta... a "commie" camera in Hollywood??

Exakta and Praktinas were the only "system" slrs at the time so it was a commie camera or nothing. Both were extensively used by pro photographers worldwide.

AgX · Jun 21, 2020

I know the technical side of those two cameras.
But, to stay in the frame of this thread, I only watched 1 movie (actually an episode of a tv-series) where a Praktina showed up. A GDR-tv series.
Now its up to you to show us even a Hollywood production featuring a Praktina.

GRHazelton · Jun 21, 2020

I seem to recall that the Exa had a shutter which, for some reason, limited its use for telephoto lenses. Can anyone shed some light on the? I remember around 1958 or so seeing a Praktina in use by a school photographer. A handsome camera.

AgX · Jun 21, 2020

Basically a short-mirror (to keep the mirrorbox short) might work with short-FL lenses, but not with long-FL lenses due to the angle and position of the exit-cone of the lenses.
But I do not see why the Exa with its weird shutter would be special other than this.

Donald Qualls · Jun 22, 2020

My Exa II didn't have a problem with the 135mm lens I had with it, but I never had access to any other Exakta lenses besides that and the 50mm. There was a limitation in that automatic diaphragm was entirely in the lens -- if your lens didn't have an extension with a shutter release pass-through, it was "preset" only. That is, you had to stop down manually after focusing and before releasing the shutter, and my 135mm had that limitation. About 2/3 of the 135 shots on my first few rolls were badly overexposed.

abruzzi · Jun 23, 2020

I don’t have a screenshot to share, but I was just rewatching “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and at the end, the Melinda Dillon character (the woman whose son was taken), is rapid fire snapping shots of the aliens with a silver Rollei B35. There is at least one other camera in the film but I didn’t see the brand/model.

cooltouch · Jun 26, 2020

As I dimly recall, there was a brace of Nikon F2s set up somewhere in the vicinity of the alien ship.

Kodachromeguy · Jul 19, 2020

I just saw another good example this evening: Funny Face (1957) starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. The opening credits have a Rolleiflex right next to a light box. Fred Astaire plays the part of a photographer who works for a fashion magazine. The ladies from the magazine crash into a bookstore in Greenwich Village and use it as a set for some photography. He is wearing three Rolleiflexes. In the public relations photo below, he added a Leica and a Norwood Director light meter.

Richard Avedon was on the set as a technical consultant. Here he is with an 8x10" camera? Even larger?

There is also a dark room large enough to dance in!

This is pretty good if you like musicals. The plot is a bit thin (OK, very thin), but it features some interesting dancing and music from Gershwin's 1927 Funny Face. And who can resist Audrey Hepburn?

btaylor · Jul 20, 2020

Well, I cannot resist Audrey Hepburn. But the age difference between her and Fred is a little creepy!

AgX · Jul 20, 2020

Seen the average age of us Apuggers, do not spoil our hopes...

By the the way, amongst the "photographers movies" there is one devoted to this age-difference issue: "Verblendet".
I already hinted at this movie in this thread.

Old Cameras in Old Movies

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