The quest to make a ridiculously small, yet still fully-featured camera is not a new one. For historical examples, look no further than the Compass Camera. Made by Swiss watchmaker LeCoultre, it was designed by Englishman Noel Pemberton Billing and sold by Compass Cameras of London starting in 1937. It features a collapsible design and accepts 24x36mm plate film (a roll film back was later introduced).
Take a look at the video above for a full tour of the camera. Only around 5000 were produced, and they're now highly sought after by collectors. In fact, you can pick one up now on ebay if you have $7450 to spare.
A very impressive piece of engineering and production , but not of photography . Any other (much cheaper) rangefinder from that era would have bigger OVF , thus easier and far more accurate focusing (and film rolls ...) . Nice to have one of these , but not much use besides exhibiting on the shelf .
You don't have to specify "O"VF when you refer to that era: there where no alternatives to being "optical" back then. VF will do just fine, if you like acronyms. ;-)
Marvelous piece of steam punk-ish gear. I wouldn't mind having one! Too bad she had to touch the film and leave a smudge all over it. Not that it will matter much since the film probably isn't any good any more.. but it devalues the whole package. Get educated, girl!
You mean when she touches the green envelope that the film is in? If she was touching the bare film it would already be expose to light and ruined! Get educated!
They have a Compass camera on show, complete with it's original instore merchandising display at the back of the Jaeger LeCoultre boutique in Bond Street, London.
Strange reaction, seeing that she describes all of the different functions accurately. The only thing she left out was the rotating disc on the DOF scale. She did well!
The "very heavy piece of aluminium" (or did she say "aluminum"?) made me wonder too. She didn't sound as if she was very familiar with the camera. Still a nice video and an interesting camera. It will take you over a minute to take a shot, but I guess the mechanical craftsmanship and finish are second to none.
When this camera was brand new, it was probably a very expensive precision gadget. The Swiss just don't make very many things that aren't extremely well made.
Going through those 40 simple steps to load the film, set the aperture, f/stop, shutter speed, and focus makes you appreciate what we have today. We lack the build quality and the beautiful design, but the whole process of taking a photo got a lot simpler.
Allison.... this might have made a great Throwback Thursday piece, especially since very few people ever owned one or even heard of one. Much like my Canon EOS iX Lite DSLR!
I noticed one of these Compass Cameras recently sold on ebay for $3,000. And another one is currently for sale for $7,449. These must be exceedingly rare collectors items.
There's something great about accomplishing a camera's functions mechanically, instead of with a chip. Like the difference between a LeCoultre watch and an Apple watch. I'm not a watch collector but if you want to see some beautiful hand-built engineering, check out a Reverso.
How's this for the ultimate firmware upgrade policy - the original Compass I model was superseded by an improved Model II design, not long into the product life cycle. if you purchased a Compass I camera, you were entitled to have it completely replaced by the improved Model II.
Never had a chance to handle one so... if you say so, that should be it. Great piece of swiss mechanics... and a nice example of how to take (one's) time in the process of "photography making" (hehe). Love that !
Nice, but it looks more like stainless steel (thus the heaviness...), not aluminium. Swiss made. And yes, it would be nice if this would "inspire" some today's camera makers for some mini FF or APS-C digital models.
It is in fact aluminum; most Compass cameras have a slightly dull aluminum patina from handling and air exposure over the years. The reason it's heavy for the size is that it is not an aluminum shell, but a block (or billet) of aluminum that is machined out to make the camera body.
For a camera built in 1937, this is really impressive. I mean, it looks very cumbersome and confusing to use, but for that time, it's quite ingenious and has a quite advanced feature set for such a little thing.
As with many cameras of that era, sheet film was one option. There was also a rollfilm back that took spools of Compass film (not standard 35mm cassettes which were too big to go with the camera).
More seriously, fabulous camera, lots of thought and work went into making that, lots of attention te detail and different options. I would love to put one of the films through it and see what results you get. I did that with a 1936 Super Ikonta, and got good results, here it will depend on how well the film has survived :-)
@Maoby. I hope you won't shoot me being the messenger but your photo's would be more illustrative to watchers if there would be an object of reference.
Wow, a feature set that puts the latest Sony's to shame... many thanks for that (slightly belated) video discovery. I really liked the light meter, plus the tripod mount that does panoramas (presumably around the no-parallax point) and stereograms.
Wow, interesting stuff! If it wasnt for the war, Jaeger-Lecoultre might had continued making cameras, who knows? Apparently the compass camera has a Kern lens, another great swiss company that has made lenses for the cine industry for a long time (Bolex-Paillard and others).
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