----- 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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