Rare American Ads from 1848-1875

[luvcameras]

see

Dead Link Removed

Dan

 

[Chazzy]

You've made me very happy—I've read them all. I just wish that I could take some of those steam-engine Daguerreotypes!

I thought it was interesting to see that as far back as the 1860s camera format sizes went from 10x12, to 11x14, to 14x17—ULF sizes which are still in use today. I was a little surprised that the next larger size after 14x17 was not 16x20—apparently that format came in later.

 

[pgomena]

Carleton Watkins' mammoth camera used 18x22" plates. That was in the 1860s too. His album images were frequently cropped to 16x20". I will venture to guess that the images were cropped to eliminate imperfections and fingerprints at the plate edges.

Peter Gomena

 

[Wade D]

Cool site. Thanks for the link.

 

[bsdunek]

Considering the cost of things at the time, photography wasn't cheap then either! A $5000 DSLR is cheaper.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

I love that site. I wouldn't mind having some of those old cameras.

Jeff