Box camera
Box cameras are a class of mainly 19th century camera types.
history
The box cameras are the oldest class of photographic cameras. The first camera ever used for making persistent photographic images was the big wooden box camera that Nicéphore Niépce used for experimental photography in the mid-1820s. When Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre joined his developments of new photographic processes they already used box cameras with iris diaphragm. Daguerre gave Niépce such a camera. Concerning lenses they had different preferences, Daguerre liked the color corrected (achromatic) version of the periscopic lens of optician-engineer Dr. Wollaston, Niépce sought the help of the opticians Vincent and Charles Chevalier. Some years later William Henry Fox Talbot made his photographic experiments. He had a whole series of little box cameras ("mousetraps") to be able to make several exposures on one sunny day - exposure times were very long in those pioneering days. The box design of all these pioneer cameras was derived from a certain variant of the camera obscura.
When Daguerre could present a photographic process with acceptable exposure times in 1839 he made plans for a very heavy wooden box camera that became the model for many early photographic cameras: A box with an open back, and a hole in the middle of the front to mount a lens or a diaphragm and a lens. Shutters were not needed, the lens cap was sufficient. A second box, one with open front side, held in its back the light sensitive plate in its holder, or the focusing ground glass instead. The second box had to be pushed like a drawer into the outer box. Focusing was made with open lens, wide aperture and ground glass in the back by shifting the inner box for- or backward until the image subject appeared sharp on the screen. Since the sliding drawer should not hang in its position the bottom plate of the outer box was of double length so that the inner box was always moved on this plane. Alphonse Giroux was the maker of the biggest series of Daguerre's original camera "Le Daguerreotype", some made of fine walnut wood. He used achromatic lenses of the optician Charles Chevalier. Optician Bianchi produced a similar camera, probably with own lenses but the woodwork done by the same craftsmen that made Giroux's cameras. It's supposed that the Susse frères made a small series of "Le Daguerreotype" too. In 2007 such a camera appeared for the first time in an photographica auction. 168 years after the production of the original camera the successful bidder must have a strong belief in its authenticity. Other early makers of sliding box cameras for the daguerreotype or the talbotype process were Gaudin & Lerebours (F), James Ottevill (GB) and John Roberts (USA) as well as many unknown craftsmen of the 1840s.
box camera types
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sliding box camera for daguerreotype and talbotype photography makers: most are unknown, the first one was Alphonse Giroux |
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box camera for single plates makers: Yale, Ernemann |
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box camera for multiple plates or magazine camera makers: Dr. Krügener, Adams & Westlake, Houghtons, Suter, Gaumont and others |
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box camera for roll film makers: Emil Wünsche, H.J. Redding, Alfred Kemper, Kodak, Ernemann, Conley, Houghton-Butcher, Agfa, Lumière and others |
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pseudo TLR for roll film makers: Voigtländer, Eho-Altissa and others |
Box shaped cameras with more sophisticated camera technology contents like the early instant camera Appareil Dubroni No 1 or iold semi folding SLR cameras or real TLR cameras are not classified as box cameras. So the class of the box cameras is one of simpler camera construction.
One remarkable maker must be mentioned here: Thomas Ottewil who was the first successful maker of collapsible box cameras, a unique camera type between box and folder.
