[rollei_list] Re: Press Cameras
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:20:54 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Williams" <dwilli10@xxxxxxx>
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2012 12:18 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Press Cameras
Just a random comment-
Today I just happened to watch, on TV, the show about the
"21" quiz
show where Charles vanDoren and others were found to have
been given
answers to the questions. Maybe half of you will remember
it.
As I watched the movie, I noticed there were many press
cameras and
some pretty cheap cameras in the courtroom scenes.
From a very young age I wanted a press camera, maybe a
Speed
Graphic, or something similar. I now realize that having
a press
camera would have been a real bother and I would have had
no need for one.
Are there others who had the same thoughts as a young
amateur photographer?
DAW
I remember 21 and the awful scandal it brought about.
It seems to me that cheating was found to be common on these
high-jackpot shows. All meant to make the shows more
exciting for the audience and sell more soap or cigarettes
or whatever.
The Speed Graphic was the standard press camera. There
_were_ others such as the B&J camera. After the Crown
Graphic came out in 1947 a lot of photogs switched to them
because they were noticeably lighter. The difference is
that the Crown does not have the focal plane shutter of the
Speed. Busch also made good folding cameras, and at one
time, advertised one with a focal plane shutter in it. This
was probably to meet a military spec for the Speed but the
Busch shutter was much advance over the very crude one found
in the Speed Graphic and Graflex cameras. I've never seen
one of these Busch cameras in the flesh so I don't think
many were made. I had a Busch Pressman long ago (a burglar
go it) it was a fine camera.
The Speed Graphic became the defacto standard press
camera sometime around the late 1920s. Previously the
Graflex SLR was very often used, especially in the 5x7 size.
The story, which may be apocryphal, is that a N.Y.Times
photog was using his Graflex to photograph an automobile
race and was hit and killed by a run-away car because his
face was in the hood and he could not see it. The Times
forbid the use of Graflex cameras and so did other papers so
the Speed Graphic came to the fore.
The film of the time tended to be grainy so having a
large negative was a virtue. Also, plates and sheet film
lent themselves well to rapid processing. Also, the usual
technique was to use a powerful flash, stop the lens down,
and use the camera as pretty much a fixed-focus or guess
focus camera to speed up action. Even if the wanted image
was captured on only a corner of the negative it could still
be blown up with enough detail for the very low resolution
half-tone printing of the time (sometimes with lines drawn
around the important parts). After WW-2 smaller cameras
began to make inroads. Initially Rolleiflexes started to
appear and then 35mm cameras.
I was brought up on press cameras. One of my teachers
in highschool had been a working press photographer and
showed me how to use a Speed Graphic, both to take pictures
and as a weapon (metal re-inforced corners). I still like
these old dinosaurs and can work pretty fast with one.
Of course, modern press work is simply to point your
cell phone at the subject and take a low frame rate movie of
it. One can then select the right picture. In the old days
one had to have a nose for the "right moment".
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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