Show Us Your Camera

I’ve always wondered about that lens. I did see someone photographing an eclipse with similarly long tubes on the camera, but Ponting doesn’t seem to be doing that.
 
Roy_H said:
Allegedly, this is the same camera shown in the attached photo of Ponting at work in the Antarctic. I can't validate this, but it would be nice to believe it is true.
Click to expand...

Allegedly is the right term, the bellows are different, there are more folds on Ponting's camera bellows in that photo, and far more importantly it's not got the inlaid tropical brass fittings which yours has. Yours is a tropical model, however Herbert Ponting also went to Egypt on one of Lord Caernarvon's Tutankhamen Expeditions, so your Gandolfi may well have been his at some point, just not the camera in that photo.

I should add other photos of Ponting's Antarctic expedition Gandolfi more clearly show it didn't have those tropical fittings.

Ian
 
David M said:
I’ve always wondered about that lens. I did see someone photographing an eclipse with similarly long tubes on the camera, but Ponting doesn’t seem to be doing that.
Click to expand...

Well, there's a Thornton Pickard roller blind shutter in the middle, and it must be an air bulb release with that glove. There is an almost identical photo, but with a focus cloth.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
Allegedly is the right term, the bellows are different, there are more folds on Ponting's camera bellows in that photo, and far more importantly it's not got the inlaid tropical brass fittings which yours has. Yours is a tropical model, however Herbert Ponting also went to Egypt on one of Lord Caernarvon's Tutankhamen Expeditions, so your Gandolfi may well have been his at some point, just not the camera in that photo.

I should add other photos of Ponting's Antarctic expedition Gandolfi more clearly show it didn't have those tropical fittings.

Ian
Click to expand...
Good point Ian, I hadn't studied the Ponting picture closely. I think the tale of it being Ponting's is an apocryphal one, handed down through the generations of in-house University photographers to add a little excitement to their otherwise dull existences in the basements of the Downing site (I can say that as I was one of those for a time...). My source was adamant that there was a Ponting connection though, so he'd obviously been told that at some point. Perhaps you are right about the Egypt possibility, can't imagine the University paying for a tropical model if it wasn't needed.
The bellows were replaced in the latter part of the last century by the way, probably not by Gandolfi as they aren't the same quality.
 
When you read of Ponting’s difficulties, all our own problems seem trivial.
…but what could he be doing with that enormous extension? If you imagine the rays, they could only have produced a very tiny image.
 
If you look at the picture of Roy's Gandolfi, the screen is marked for smaller formats. Rather than use different backs, thin wooden inserts were used to allow the use of smaller plates in a larger, book form, plate holder.

By chance, I opened my 1911 BJP Almanac, and Beck made a series of Telephoto attachments, The "Universal" Series, up to 45½" 12x magnification. These were modular, and long.

The style of bellows helps date the cameras, square cornered bellows began to disappear around 1900 and by 1904 few cameras used them. Also the materials used to make bellows varied, the bellows on my own Gadolfi fell apart, essentially they used some sort of coated paper, not leather, others use coated cloth.

Ian
 
This is an illustration of the Beck "Universal" telephoto Attachment, from Conrad Beck's - The Photographer's Note Book on Lenses.

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Perhaps not surprising to see Ponting's lens in a TP shutter, Thornton Pickard were Beck's largest customer supplying lenses for their field cameras. Coverage is far greater than we assumed, the longer telephoto adapters cover up to 14"x16".

Of course there were equivalents from companies like Ross and Dallmeyer.

Ian
 
Yes, I spotted the markings on the Cambridge camera. From my limited experience, they seem to be quite common on old cameras.
Thanks for the Beck advertisement. What a monster!
Section E is marked “LOW“ with a scale (8 5 3) and “HIGH“ with another (20 15 10 8 6) that are unfamiliar to me
 
There's probably also Standard scale, it's a reference to the power of the rear element "B", the lenses were also used on cine cameras, hence the focus scales.

Ian
 
Have gone French and bought a 13x18cm Chambre de Voyage :D err in bits, arrived Yesterday . . . . .

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Luckily, everything was there. There were some minor issues with broken bits of Tongue and Groove, so a compromise repair.

Essentially restored or rather reassembled in about 3 hours, aside from the overnight wait for wood glue to harden. It originally had a TP shutter screwed to the lens board, I'll have one that'll fit I’m sure :)

Meanwhile, I've stuck an Ilex Paragon lens on the camera . . . . . . . . . .

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These are uniquely French, the back slots into different positions, rotate anti cockwise and the back and bellows rotate behind the lens board.

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You drop the front to be neutral in terms of rise and fall.

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I can't not do it, I have to breathe new life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ian
 
Very nice. The first picture made me think of an IKEA camera.
 
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It was a bit like assembling a complex bit of Ikea flat pack furniture without the instructions :D

The eBay seller stated he'd taken it apart some years ago, I think he'd forgotten how to re-assemble it. I had to logically match the brass work to the woodwork, so set up a 5ft trestle table. What's neat is the rear standard is a slot fit into the two brass tracks, to change from portrait to landscape format you un-slot and turn the back 90°, the bellows swivel in the front standard.

I think it's time I wrote an article on the different approaches to LF camera design taken by the UK, Germany, France, and the US. Of course there was some cross over but ultimately British designs influence almost all LF cameras made in recent years.

Ian
 
So, with cameras of this sort (tailboards), is there any facility for front or back tilt, shift, or swing, or are they pretty much just portrait cameras? I've never used one but am always being temped to buy and rehab an old 10x8 because - as @Ian Grant says ... it's necessary.
 
With this particular French Chambre de Voyage there are no movements, except rise and fall, and some front shift. Only a few have rear tilt, unlike the German Reisekameras which mostly do have rear tilt. None have shift or swing.

These Chambre de Voyage and Reisekameras are by name "Travel cameras", this one folds up to 3"x7"x10", they use a tongue and groove system to lock the front standard to the base-board. With Reisekameras there can also be additional extension.

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Ian
 
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There does seem to be something that looks like a rear tilt mechanism, just above what looks like the focusing knob. Can’t see how it would work if the orientation changed.
 
That's my 18x24cm German Reisekamera, the back is removed to rotate it, and yes that's the more typical small amount of rear tilt.

Ian
 
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