Rear focusing wooden Reisekamera with rotating bellows
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 7.375 inches (18.733 cm) | Width: 6.000 inches (15.24 cm) | Depth: 3.750 inches (9.525 cm)
Archival History
The camera was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1990.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
Wooden tailboard or travel camera with a rotating bellows for capturing horizontal and vertical photographs made in Europe around the turn of the 20th century. This type of camera has a hinged base or tailboard, allowing for rear focusing with a ground glass back. Once the focus is fixed, the glass is replaced with a glass plate negative. This variant of tailboard camera is also known as a continental view due to its equally wide front and body sections. Travel cameras were developed for use by professional photographers outside the studio. The design was perfected in Germany, where they are called Reisekamera, but often produced in other central European countries including France, where they are known as Chambre de Voyage. They were especially popular between 1895 and 1914.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Rectangular, brown wooden plate camera with a telescoping green and black leather bellows and brass colored metal fittings. On the fixed, L shaped front is a central hole ringed by a wooden mount for a lens, now missing, with a flat, corroded metal band and a metal knob and threaded metal post above. It is attached to the movable center body by the bellows and to the back by 2 butterfly hinges. On top of the body, there are 3 small holes and a flat, pivoting metal tab. On the exterior back is a flat metal hook above a small nail, a circular hole, and a threaded metal tripod mount. The back folds down to form a base with 2 parallel metal strips, with 3 aligned sets of 2 slots, screwed to a center panel. The body of the camera has a hinged, removable translucent ground glass focusing back. To focus this, it is manually pulled over the base until 4 nails on the bottom or the left side slide into the slots, locking it in place on the panel, with the bellows extended vertically or horizontally. A metal knob on each side of the base moves the panel along a metal rack and pinion.
Subjects
- Popular culture--Germany--History--20th century.
- Photography--Equipment and supplies.
- Germany--Social life and customs.
Genre
- Audiovisual and Photographic Materials
- Object