Three negative color camera for dye transfer process.

Paul Goutiere · Jan 7, 2013

I visited a photographer in Kitchener Ontario (Canada) about 1968. He did a lot of dye transfer and large format photography in his studio. Mainly
he did things like advertising and catalog photos.

There was this camera, in the studio, set up on a tripod. A strange looking affair that took three 4x5 B&W negatives.

Does anyone know the camera I'm referring too? It looked fairly modern, some metal and black leather.

removed account4 · Jan 7, 2013

hi paul

i think they were called one shot color separation cameras
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?48209-National-Fotocolor-One-Shot-Camera
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?66641-WTB-One-shot-Trichromie-camera

and if you like making tri color color prints this sort of camera would be PERFECT

john

MDR · Jan 7, 2013

Probably a variation of the System Miethe Bermpohl Naturfarbencamera. Here's a link to one made out of wood http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml another possibility is the Leroychrome Color Separation camera which works like the Bermpohl camera but is made out of metal http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/4979-leroychrome-early-color-separation-camer.
I'd love to own either a Miethe/bermpohl or a leroychrome camera.

Dominik

Paul Goutiere · Jan 7, 2013

MDR said:
Probably a variation of the System Miethe Bermpohl Naturfarbencamera. Here's a link to one made out of wood http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml another possibility is the Leroychrome Color Separation camera which works like the Bermpohl camera but is made out of metal http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/4979-leroychrome-early-color-separation-camer.
I'd love to own either a Miethe/bermpohl or a leroychrome camera.

Dominik

Thank you....yes! I'm pretty sure it was the "Leroychrome", but this was 45 years ago. It was used in his dye transfer process and he may have sent the negs to a printer as well.

DREW WILEY · Jan 7, 2013

Both Devin and Curtis manufactured tricolor sheet film cameras. These turn up for sale from
time to time but are quite tedious to refurbish. A few people still use them. The best color inkjet prints I have ever seen were scanned from old tricolor separation negatives, originally intended for either dye transfer or carbro. The reason they now have to be printed this way is that the originals were on acetate film, which is not dimensionally stable, so the negs are no longer exactly the same size, and had to be re-registered in PS. If the film base had been polyester, they could be used as is.
Tricolor cameras could also be hypothetically made on a beam-splitter prism premise, the way big
Technicolor movie cameras operated. For studio still-life work, you can simply make three sequential
exposures through red, green, and blue filters, provided you can maintain perfect register.

AgX · Jan 7, 2013

MDR said:
Probably a variation of the System Miethe Bermpohl Naturfarbencamera. Here's a link to one made out of wood http://www.vintagephoto.tv/bermpohl_img.shtml another possibility is the Leroychrome Color Separation camera which works like the Bermpohl camera but is made out of metal http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/4979-leroychrome-early-color-separation-camer.
I'd love to own either a Miethe/bermpohl or a leroychrome camera.

Dominik

Miethe was not and advocator of such a camera at all, due to technical reasons. For his work he used his automated successive-exposure camera without beamsplitting.

MDR · Jan 7, 2013

Agx you might be right but the cameras use the miethe system and are called Dr Miethe's Dreifarben-Kamera and were build by Bermpohl after Miethe's design.

AgX · Jan 7, 2013

Miethe had seemingly designed several beam-splitter simultaneous-exposure cameras.
But still to me the "Miethe-System" is made up by the use of his successive-exposure camera. In many of his photographs one can see the time-parallax. This camera was also built by Bermpohl.

Literature is contradictive about dates (would have to check at original sources), so even cameras might be mixed up. But it is the successive-exposure system that was favoured by Miethe.

And is that system that Prokudin-Gorski took over from Miethe.

DREW WILEY · Jan 10, 2013

But was the original camera specifically in question made in Europe or the US? The combination
of metal and leather on it is reminiscent of a Curtis or maybe Devin. These used semi-silvered mirrors
(pellicles) and allowed a simultaneous exposure of all three sheets of film.

AgX · Jan 15, 2013

As far as I know there is only one 3-colour simultaneous-exposure that looks quite modern and is of 4x5 format: Vivex 2

Black metal, but... no leather.

Three negative color camera for dye transfer process.

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