Old Cameras in Old Movies

[drkhalsa]

Photographer Henri Dauman playing a photographer showing Brigitte Bardot his camera in a Roger Vadim movie. Screen shot taken from "Looking Up" a documentary about Mr. Dauman's life.

 

[AgX]

You missed to tell the title of that movie. I doubt the photo is from a movie at all. To my understanding it is showing the real photographer Henri Dauman working on a film set, not playing a role.

 

[drkhalsa]

Yes, I did miss the movie title, but didn't feel like going back to pick it up. But, he did state that he had that small role as a photographer in the movie and that enabled him to take photos while on the set as well. Apparently he had worked with Mr. Vadim before.

 

[drkhalsa]

From the 2019 movie: T-34. I don't know either camera.

 

[KinoGrafx]

View attachment 296431

From the 2019 movie: T-34. I don't know either camera.

From left, a pentaflex 16mm, then an early arriflex 16s, and then a medalist?

 

[MattKing]

From left, a pentaflex 16mm, then an early arriflex 16s, and then a medalist?

Definitely a Medalist.

 

[AgX]

From left, a pentaflex 16mm, then an early arriflex 16s, and then a medalist?

KW Pentaflex: AK 16 (later Pentaflex) 1951

Arriflex 16: 1951

German soldiers at the front only used 35mm for cinematography!

Kodak Medalist : 1941

But it was not marketed in Germany!


The flashbulb is wrong too...

 

[AgX]

And in case someone argues that the Medalist could have been booty from US troops, that would have been far in the war, and then still the issue would be to get PB 20 rolls to feed it.

 

[drkhalsa]

From the movie: White Tiger.

 

[AgX]

left Praktiflex 2 : 1946

center KW AK 16 : 1951

 

[Duceman]

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.

There also a ton of other cameras throughout the movie...

Rapid Omega 100

Nikon (?) and I can't tell what the guy to the Nikon's left has.

A Hasselblad 500c:

And a whole bunch of cameras in the final scene with the mothership:

 

[abruzzi]

How horrible! He's walking around with the WLF open, in the sand, while a helicopter behind him is probably kicking up an awful lot of stuff.

 

[drkhalsa]

left Praktiflex 2 : 1946

center KW AK 16 : 1951

This scene in White Tiger was set in 1945,

KW Pentaflex: AK 16 (later Pentaflex) 1951

Arriflex 16: 1951

German soldiers at the front only used 35mm for cinematography!

Kodak Medalist : 1941

But it was not marketed in Germany!


The flashbulb is wrong too...

This scene in T-34 was set in 1944 in a prisoner of war compound in Germany.

Your information about the cameras in both is an example of a recent post of yours (in another thread I believe) that cameras used in many films are not period accurate.

 

[AgX]

Exactly. I expect in "documentaries" right historic footage and right reenactment if applied.

Movies are a different topic. I personally would not mind that much, seen more critical errors typically found in movies of historic context.
But I know that in war movies some people are very specfic on the weapons, uniforms etc. being correct, thus in these cases I applied same on the used cameras.

 

[AgX]

In this thread, on "movies" we found quite some cameras not period-correct, erroneously used, or even faked.

This to me makes a great deal of the joy of this thread. Thus hinting at such should not be seen as critique by me (though in my very recent postings in this thread this may look this way).
And I guess most of us enjoy these "deviations" too.

I enjoy that fake Exakta in a scene with puppets much more then the 10th F1 hinted at ...

 

[Moose22]

This to me makes a great deal of the joy of this thread. Thus hinting at such should not be seen as critique by me (

It is totally OK and normal to notice that stuff.

Saw a TV show, Italian, called Luna Park. One character is a rich young man who wants to be a photojournalist. He uses a Leica, which would be about right for a rich man dabbling in photography in the early 1960s.

One scene he is taking paparazzi shots and they show the view through the camera, and it is very obviously an SLR viewfinder, not an M3. You can't NOT notice if know the difference!

Luna Park was an homage to classic Italian cinema, though, and in that environment the story is what matters. Not technical historical details. It isn't Mad Men. People expect some things to be glossed over. Close enough is good enough.

 

[AgX]

Sometimes it can be the little things. I remember a soviet movie about a budding photographer, doing her first jobs. In her small room on a rack the props people put the original cardboard case of her Kiev 88 TTL. Something convincing for a photgrapher without yet a cabinet full of stuff. (Maybe though someone sees it as product placing.) post #769

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Cleo Moore in Over-Exposed (1956), Italian publicity poster.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Other still from Over-Exposed

 

[Alex Benjamin]

A few more of Cleo Moore, from Over-Exposed

 

[Alex Benjamin]

 

[Alex Benjamin]

 

[Donald Qualls]

One scene he is taking paparazzi shots and they show the view through the camera, and it is very obviously an SLR viewfinder, not an M3. You can't NOT notice if know the difference!

Yep. Same error in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow -- the journalist (who is taking her own photos after being separated from her photographer) is using an obvious Argus C3, but we're repeatedly shown an SLR focusing screen going in and out of focus -- and yet she manages to waste her last frame with the lens cap on (an error you're extremely unlikely to make with an SLR).

Given the wide distribution of the C3, I'm not sure why a movie set in an alternate history would use it -- too recognizable, too many viewers will have actually used one, so will catch the slightest error. At least a Leica M series is/was expensive enough few of those watching the movie will have actually owned or used one. And I'm certain everyone involved in the actual camera and film work on that movie knows the difference between a rangefinder and SLR viewfinder picture; they could just as easily have used a visual FX of an RF patch going in and out of sync...

 

[Duceman]

Given the wide distribution of the C3...

And yet, at most, maybe only 1/10th of 1% of all who view the movie will be able to spot error.

 

[Donald Qualls]

IMO, "almost nobody will notice" is no excuse to get things this heinously wrong.