Old Cameras in Old Movies

[Louis Nargi]

the public eye with joe pesci
he was felling-esque
and of course used
a speed or crown graphic.

In the Public I he also used 35mm cameras in the seen where he rolled them out in the middle of the floor during the shoot out in the restaurant. I would have to watch it again to maybe find out

 

[Theo Sulphate]

New movies with old cameras offer opportunities to spot mistakes. Perhaps the new movie is to portray an earlier time (e.g. 1935), so the cameras should be period correct. My father would always discover this type of problem with cars in movies.

Also, because those people who are responsible for the camera as a prop are likely unfamiliar with the camera, they might make silly mistakes (such as not removing the dark slide when making a photo).

 

[keenmaster486]

Some movies I have seen will use a Brownie Six-16 or something else clearly 30's - 40's material when the movie is set around the turn of the century.

It's really annoying.

 

[TheRook]

New movies with old cameras offer opportunities to spot mistakes. Perhaps the new movie is to portray an earlier time (e.g. 1935), so the cameras should be period correct. My father would always discover this type of problem with cars in movies.

Also, because those people who are responsible for the camera as a prop are likely unfamiliar with the camera, they might make silly mistakes (such as not removing the dark slide when making a photo).

Or the prop department simply feels the selected camera is close enough for the time period represented. After all, the movie serves primarily as entertainment and the great majority of viewers are more concerned with experiencing the general feel of the period, not historical accuracy of every detail. When a film flops in the theaters, it is almost certainly not because of a camera prop.

 

[AgX]

New movies with old cameras offer opportunities to spot mistakes. Perhaps the new movie is to portray an earlier time (e.g. 1935), so the cameras should be period correct. My father would always discover this type of problem with cars in movies.

As I showed somewhere in this thread such issue already was seen in old movies, with cameras depicted not used at that period for such task (my example was police photography). It seems often figurants were asked to bring with them some camera, to then act as press photographers.
Also in one example I showed a modified camerab (cemented on flash-cube).

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Or the prop department simply feels the selected camera is close enough for the time period represented. ... When a film flops in the theaters, it is almost certainly not because of a camera prop.

True, but spotting anachronisms in movies or on television is fun for some people. That's not me, though: in the last 20 years I've been to two movies.

 

[AgX]

Third photo store. Again in a crime story. This time a west-german one:

"Tatort - Zwei Leben" (Scene of Crime - Two Lifes), 1976

@ 8:29min , 38:40 , 43:00 , 50:31 , 1:17:59
guess who is the murderer... and the Jobo 35 tank at 1:22:52 contains a bomb !!

 

[GRHazelton]

I'm always amused when a flashbulb makes a loud noise when fired in a movie, or when a leaf shutter is clearly audible many feet away. Back in the day I shot hundreds of flash bulbs; all expired in silence, or at the most a faint crackling as the bulb cooled. And all of my leaf-shutter cameras are virtually inaudible 3 or 4 feet away. Cell phone "cameras" often make a loud simulation of a leaf shutter. Also amusing. Why not the sound sequence of a motor drive on a Pentax LX? Or the horrendous clatter of a Bronica S2a?

 

[AgX]

Very often the sound of an SX-70 is used in a media today.

 

[AgX]

Not a whole camera, but a sight through an SLR finder, used in the generics.

"Declaratie De Dragoste", Romania 1985

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Not a whole camera, but a sight through an SLR finder...

Interesting!

Cannot be a real viewfinder or even a copy of a real one, though. Reasons: aperture scale is too limited (16 to 2). "T 22" doesn't make sense for SLR - it may be a ciné T stop.

 

[TheRook]

Not a whole camera, but a sight through an SLR finder, used in the generics.

"Declaratie De Dragoste", Romania 1985


View attachment 189537

The camera pictured in the movie relating to the viewfinder view is a Praktica SLR - here's a screenshot moments before. However, I'm not sure if the viewfinder image truthfully represents what one would see in the viewfinder of that model. At least the actor seems to know how to properly hold and operate a camera, which is not always the case when cameras appear in movies.

 

[drkhalsa]

In an episode of Kojak, from the 1970s, Martin Balsam, as a former cop turned private detective, used a Schneider Kreuznach 200mm lens on what I think was a Contax F.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Atomic Blond had a girl using a Nikon. Didn't look that closely. It was set in the late 80s. More importantly though it had a Durst enlarger and a darkroom....

The Last Post is a current British TV series and a photojournalist is carrying a Contax IIIa with an 85mm on it. Also shows a darkroom setup, but I didn't look that closely. Set in Yemen in the 50s or 60s I think.

 

[AgX]

The camera pictured in the movie relating to the viewfinder view is a Praktica SLR - here's a screenshot moments before. However, I'm not sure if the viewfinder image truthfully represents what one would see in the viewfinder of that model.

I somehow overlooked that scene.
From its lettering it only can be a Praktica L, which does not even have a meter.
But I doubt that they made up a viewfinder screen. Though what I see seems weird (set is 22, the meter only reaches to 16). Someone will recognize it ...

 

[AgX]

"Five Photographs" , West-Germany, 1963

Within the first 20 minutes several scenes inside and outside a photo drugstore.
A lab technician gets an order for processing a rollfilm and making 8x10s. The photos show a corpse...
Interesting is that the name of that drugstore used in the dialogues does not fit to the name on the shop front.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Close Encounters of the Third Time has one 110 camera and one Rollei 35 but those were contemporary.

 

[bvy]

Close Encounters of the Third Time has one 110 camera and one Rollei 35 but those were contemporary.

This was on last night. I noticed the Rollei too.

 

[AgX]

Close Encounters of the Third Time has one 110 camera and one Rollei 35 but those were contemporary.

"Contemporary" is ok for this thread. Actually most of the stuff mentioned so far was contemporary when the movies were made.

But I would not complain if someone comes up with an old movie showing a futuristic camera. As long as it uses film...
Though I doubt there was such movie made.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

...
But I would not complain if someone comes up with an old movie showing a futuristic camera. As long as it uses film...
...

Well, there's this one:

http://towersecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/unusual_camera_box_camera.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Most_Unusual_Camera

 

[Helios 1984]

Jeff Bridges holding a Nikon F2 in King Kong (1976)

 

[AgX]

Jan got an Exakta Varex, well, kind of....

from 3:15 to 4:50

 

[Helios 1984]

Jan got an Exakta Varex, well, kind of....

from 3:15 to 4:50

Jan will be so disappointed when his negs will be back from the lab, they'll be blank because he didn't wound the wind knob even once. : /

 

[AgX]

A camera hidden in a Matchbox

"Rue Madeleine", USA , 1947

I have not got my books at hand, but on the net I could not verify the camera at all. Maybe some of you can.
Of course it even might be a mock-up. (And the scene in itself is not logical...)

 

[narsuitus]

The 2016 movie, "Standoff" features an old 35mm SLR throughout the movie.