1940 Leica self timer

[Amich35]

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Hello,

I'm new to this forum and to Leica cameras.  I'm a historian researching a photographer whose collection I purchased almost 30 years ago who made stereo images across the country in 1940 using 2 cameras mounted on a tripod.  I don't know which cameras (I only have a photo showing a shadow of the set up, not of the cameras themselves).  I do have a Leica film cassette in the collection which makes me think he used Leicas rather than a Contax because I understand these were proprietary.  The photographer included himself in a number of images suggesting that he had a self timer as well (some were made in very remote areas such as the backcountry of Glacier National Park where there wasn't someone around to snap releases.  There are also images showing the photographer clearly not quite ready in his pose, suggesting that the self timers were not functioning correctly or that they were going off at different times (when doing stereo they must go off at exactly the same moment).  So, my question for you all is which Leica would a very good amateur photographer have used in 1940 (the camera probably needed to be available in 1939) and what self timers were available in 1940?

 

Thanks much for any suggestions

 

Michael 

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[TomB_tx]

Could be one of these - or by then likely after market ones also:

https://wiki.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/APDOO

https://wiki.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/HEBOO

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, Amich35 said:

So, my question for you all is which Leica would a very good amateur photographer have used in 1940 (the camera probably needed to be available in 1939) and what self timers were available in 1940?

Welcome to the forum!

The first choice Leica in 1939 would have been the IIIb, but of course your subject might have been using an earlier or lower specification model (after all, we still use them today!) and indeed several of these were still in production that year, including the IIIa, III, II and I. The IIIc was not launched until 1940. For details, see:

https://wiki.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/Main_Page#Screw-thread_Bodies

Click on any model to see the years and quantities it was produced in.

Edited August 3, 2024 by Anbaric

[jaapv]

If he was using two cameras, I think it unlikely that a selftimer was used, as it would be very hard to release both selftimers  simultaneously; as you note they were not very precise.
It seems more likely that he used a double cable release and an assistant. he could easily have taken one even to remote areas. Come to think of it, for moderately static subjects he could have used two long bulb releases and squeezed both together.

[Amich35]

I appreciate the suggestions!  There were two very short cable releases in the collection that I purchased so the thought of an assistant, or even someone he met at the site, seems the better  possibility.  Also, because it looks like these self timers could only go for 15 seconds at the max doesn't seem long enough for him to have gotten out to where he is standing in the photos (often on a rock precipice where hurrying wasn't an option). 

Am I correct as well that if he used a Leica film cassette it would only work in a Leica?  And if so, what advantage would it have over using Kodachrome cartridges?  Was it cheaper or easier to buy and mount film himself in bulk?  (they were mounted for an SVE stereo projector that came out in 1941 and had lenses one over the other rather than side by side so that it could project either slides or filmstrips.

Thanks much!

 

Michael 

[jaapv]

Leica even sold a special cable release for the purpose. The code name was OTZWO

 

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Bulb cable release cables date back to the very beginning of cameras with shutters, they are still being sold.  Using a couple of these and squeezing both together would have enabled him to take stereo self-portraits. 

 

 

 

 

[Anbaric]

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6 hours ago, Amich35 said:

Am I correct as well that if he used a Leica film cassette it would only work in a Leica?  And if so, what advantage would it have over using Kodachrome cartridges?  Was it cheaper or easier to buy and mount film himself in bulk?

A version of the Leica cassette was launched with the camera in 1925. For several years, this was the only cassette available for the Leica. You could reload it from bulk film in the darkroom (then, as now, the cheapest option) but film manufacturers soon started to sell pre-cut lengths of film for darkroom loading, and paper-wrapped daylight reloads. In 1932, the first disposable cassettes for the Leica were launched by Agfa, and Kodak would soon follow with the familiar 135 cassette designed for their own Retina cameras as well as the Leica and Contax. Disposable cassettes have velvet light traps so that the film can pass freely through the slot without scratching it.

The most common Leica cassette has a more complex and robust design - the slot has no velvet, but does not open fully until it is placed in the camera and the baseplate latch is turned, simultaneously locking the camera and unlocking the cassette. This is reversed after the film has been exposed and rewound. This cassette unlocking mechanism was still included in Leicas until some point in the 1980s (a new reloadable cassette was sold for the M series), but most photographers had switched to disposable cassettes decades earlier.

I've not aware of any non-Leica camera that can unlock the common Leica cassettes. There was at one point another version that had a light trap like the disposable cassettes, which appears to have been designed by Agfa and Leitz and might work in other cameras, but this one is much less common. The usual kind for the screwmount cameras (the commonest variant is the FILCA-B, or Spool Chamber Model B ) is the three-piece design described in this IIIa manual, which also shows you how it works:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/leica_pdf/leica_iiia.pdf

Is this what you have? Post some photos if you're unsure. The FILCA should also be a  couple of mm longer than a modern disposable cassette. The later IXMOO, which works with both the M cameras and the screwmount models, is the same size as the modern cassette. and will I think include 'GmbH' in the Leitz company name engraving. It was not available until the 1950s.

Edited August 3, 2024 by Anbaric

[willeica]

16 hours ago, Amich35 said:

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and to Leica cameras.  I'm a historian researching a photographer whose collection I purchased almost 30 years ago who made stereo images across the country in 1940 using 2 cameras mounted on a tripod.  I don't know which cameras (I only have a photo showing a shadow of the set up, not of the cameras themselves).  I do have a Leica film cassette in the collection which makes me think he used Leicas rather than a Contax because I understand these were proprietary.  The photographer included himself in a number of images suggesting that he had a self timer as well (some were made in very remote areas such as the backcountry of Glacier National Park where there wasn't someone around to snap releases.  There are also images showing the photographer clearly not quite ready in his pose, suggesting that the self timers were not functioning correctly or that they were going off at different times (when doing stereo they must go off at exactly the same moment).  So, my question for you all is which Leica would a very good amateur photographer have used in 1940 (the camera probably needed to be available in 1939) and what self timers were available in 1940?

 

Thanks much for any suggestions

 

Michael 

There are a lot of sides to this. Firstly to get full-frame stereo images the recommended method was to use one camera and a slide bar such as the FIATE and to take two images with the same camera, which was obviously not the case here. There was a device for two cameras called the TOWIN which had two cameras, one mounted on top of the other, but it did not appear until after WWII. The prism and lens systems such as the Stereoly and the Stemar gave half-frame images 24x18mm in pairs instead of a single 24x36mm image. So, one question is what size are the negative pairs, if you have them?

Using two APDOO self timers would have been dodgy as the time set/given would have to precisely the same for both devices/cameras, particularly if there was to be a human being in the image. These were not precise devices when it came to times.

The FILCA B was the most common version of the Leica reloadable cassette, but by 1939/40 ready loaded commercial cassettes were generally available. 

It would help if you could post some of the pictures and, particularly, the negatives. The image showing a shadow of the device would be useful. If this man used Leicas in 1939, he could have used any of the models up to and including the IIIb.

I feel we are poking around in the dark on this, but a little bit more information might help. 

William 

[Amich35]

Attached are my two slides showing the shadows of the rig.  These are the only known views showing the cameras!  They were taken in 1940 in Yellowstone National Park at a mud pot, hence the uneven surface.  There's also a shot of the Leica cannister and cassette and another of the two kinds of slides that I have, the vertically mounted ones fit the 1941 SVE stereo projector as is and the separate ones require a special loading magazine.  FYI, I'm a university history professor and I've been working on this project off and on since purchasing the projector and the 2000 slides at a garage sale in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1996 and am trying to close up some loose ends before submitting the book manuscript to publishers...so this detail really helps.

  As part of the project, I've visited many of the places the photographer visited in 1940 and rephotographed them using paired Sony Rx100 V digital cameras to better understand the process of shooting stereo and to see how places have changed over the last 8 decades.  So far, I've been to the following sites:  7 national parks including Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, Crater Lake, Yellowstone, and Glacier.  16 cities and scenic areas including Boston, Washington, DC, Mt. Vernon, New Orleans, Fort Wayne, Grinnell, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, Niagara Falls,  Hoover Dam,  and Cedar Breaks National Monument.  

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[TomB_tx]

That is a Leitz FILCA (B) cassette as used from 1920s-50s, along with its normal aluminum case. It will not fit the later M3 & later M models as it is too long from them. The IXMOO cassettes made for the later models look about the same, but have a sliver knob on the end (about opposite the Z mark) where the FILCA has a black knob like yours.

The 1950s were the heyday of popular stereo photography. My dad always used a Stereo Realist slide camera as we vacationed in many of the places you list, He gave me a Stereo Realist in the early 1960s, and I used it even going to college before I got into SLR (and Leica M) photography. When we stopped by the Grand Canyon on the way back from California about 12 years ago we went to many of the spots I visited in the 1950s, and took many of the same views as my Dad's stereo slides using my then new Leica M9 digital. Glacier Park was our favorite vacation (my uncle was a Ranger-Naturalist there in the summers) and I also have a lot of stereo slides of it.

I recently dusted off my Dad's Stereo Realist and took a test roll of B&W to make sure it still worked OK, and it does. Now that I've started processing color film again I may get some stereo mounts and try some Ektachrome, but I expect it will be too grainy, as my dad found out once when he couldn't get Kodachrome.

Hope you enjoy your quest!

[willeica]

14 hours ago, Amich35 said:

Attached are my two slides showing the shadows of the rig.  These are the only known views showing the cameras!  They were taken in 1940 in Yellowstone National Park at a mud pot, hence the uneven surface.  There's also a shot of the Leica cannister and cassette and another of the two kinds of slides that I have, the vertically mounted ones fit the 1941 SVE stereo projector as is and the separate ones require a special loading magazine.  FYI, I'm a university history professor and I've been working on this project off and on since purchasing the projector and the 2000 slides at a garage sale in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1996 and am trying to close up some loose ends before submitting the book manuscript to publishers...so this detail really helps.

  As part of the project, I've visited many of the places the photographer visited in 1940 and rephotographed them using paired Sony Rx100 V digital cameras to better understand the process of shooting stereo and to see how places have changed over the last 8 decades.  So far, I've been to the following sites:  7 national parks including Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, Crater Lake, Yellowstone, and Glacier.  16 cities and scenic areas including Boston, Washington, DC, Mt. Vernon, New Orleans, Fort Wayne, Grinnell, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, Niagara Falls,  Hoover Dam,  and Cedar Breaks National Monument.  

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It is hard to tell from the shadow if these are Leicas, but it is definitely a side by side set up, either self made or from a manufacturer other than Leica. Leica did not make a side by side set up such as this, but it is possible that the cameras could be Leicas. These are positive transparencies. Can you measure whether the images are approximately. 24mm x 36mm? Are all the slides in mounts? Is it possible to determine what the film brand was? It is usually on the side near the sprocket holes. The issue then would be whether the brand of film was available in bulk or was only available in pre-loaded cassettes. Colour transparencies were a very new concept in 1939.  I agree with Tom that the FILCA is a B model. Is it empty or could there be a film stub inside?

I am interested in your use of the term 'vertically mounted slides'. The Leica Stereoly would give two slides 24 mm high and 18mm wide per exposure through a splitter using normal 35mm film designed for 24 x36mm images http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C560.html

Do you have the SVE projector or can you indicate which model it was?

William 

Edited August 4, 2024 by willeica

[Anbaric]

35mm Kodachrome would be the obvious guess - the aspect ratio of the mounted slides looks like 3:2, Kodachrome would have been the dominant colour film in the US at that point, and the only still camera formats it was available in were 35mm and 828 'Bantam' roll film. It came in Kodak's own single use cassettes from the start, so the FILCA may be a red herring as far as the stereo pictures are concerned. Of course, your subject may also have taken conventional (and much less expensive) black and white shots, quite possibly with the same cameras, as most photographers at the time would have done. Are there any B&W pictures (conventional or stereo) in the collection?

[Amich35]

Answering questions here:

 

The third picture in the last group showed a vertically mounted pair of slides, the left image on top and the right image on bottom.  In my collection, there are 5 boxes of about 50 images each that are mounted like this, one above the other.  The other 23 boxes of roughly 60 images each (meaning 2 slides for each image) are either readymounts or mounted in glass like in my image.  For the glass mounts, the photographer placed a sticker in the lower left corner of the left image and another one in the lower right corner of the right image so that each is readily identifiable.  You can see this in my previous picture as well.

In the collection, there are also 5 black and white 2D portraits of the photographer.  I'll have to go back and take a look to see if they show the film type on them.  It's a been a while since I looked at those.

The slides look to be 32mm wide by 22 mm high, but that's in the mounts.

I had wondered about the Stereoly until I found the images with the shadows showing the side by side cameras.  Given the size of each slide, they seem to me to have been taken with separate cameras.

I do have the projector and used to use it but with 2, 300 watt filaments and no fan, it got very warm.  I've since scanned all 2000 slides at very high resolution and have presented them at the National Stereoscopic Association's conference where they were projected very big and were still very sharp.   It's the SVE Model SA stereo projector which used Polaroid filters to make the 3D work (I also have about 50 pairs of polaroid glasses and know that the photographer gave at least 5 public presentations in 1941 and 1942 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he lived.)  See the attached images of the projector and a close up of the nameplate.

I researched Polaroid at the Harvard Business Library's archives and found a memo from 1941 that was a survey of all stereo projectors and the author noted that although SVE had the parts for 250 projectors, it had only sold about 100 of them and that the government had shut off its access to aluminum for the projector body because of WW2.  You can see from the closeup of the nameplate that my projector is #172.  In case you don't know, SVE had invented the film strip in the 1920s as an alternative to showing movies in classrooms and so you can see that this projector also had the ability to run a film strip through it with its take up reel above the top lens.  There's also a slide changer that can be inserted into the projector for either the one combined over/under mount or the separate mounts.

 

As for the film cassette, I don't know if it's empty or not.  How would I tell?

 

 

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[Amich35]

One other thing, he was not a photographer.  He worked for Pullman as an inspector, riding the rails all over the country.  In an interview, he said that he'd been in every state of the union at least five times...which explains how he took 2000 photos all over the country!

[Amich35]

A few more artifacts from the collection.  I believe it's his brass stereo bar.  My reading of this is that he could have mounted one camera using the tripod screw mount which would put the lens to the left on a Leica (I think) and used the clamp as I have it to hold the second camera, which could then move in the channel.  The c-clamp is clearly set up to hold something with felt glued into the corner and a threaded hole that connects to the L-bolt.  Here's also a the slide viewers that were in the collection and some of the glasses.

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