The Compass Camera was made by watch-makers Le Coultre et Cie in Switzerland, in c.1937 for London firm Compass Cameras.
It was a rectangular aluminium-bodied rangefinder camera, made for 24x36mm exposures on plates.
With the lens closed, it was only 30 × 53 × 70mm (1¼x21/8x2¾in) in size, weighing 220g (7¾oz).
There was a back available for special 8-exposure films, and later also
an 828 roll film back, made by
T. A. Cubitt. About 5000 were made before production was prevented by war.[1] The design was by Noel Pemberton-Billing, an airman and Member of Parliament. There were two versions; the Compass II was offered as a free upgrade to original Compass owners[2].
The Compass was extraordinarily well-equipped for such a small package; it had two optical viewfinders, one at a right-angle, a ground glass focusing screen with a folding loupe, a built-in lens cap, three filters, an extinction meter and a spirit level. There was also a rotating fitting for the tripod bush in the base with five click stops allowing for panoramic and stereo pictures. The shutter ran from 4½s-1/500s.
The retractable lens was a 35mm f3.5 Kern anastigmat; shutter speeds from 4.5secs to 1/500.
The Compass was available in a kit, which could include a small, elegant tripod, fitted with a pocket clip, a cable-release, a small leather case or a larger fitted box taking the accessories.
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Compass by Rick Soloway
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Links / Sources
- ↑ Coe, Brian, "Cameras, from Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures", p.128, Marshall-Cavendish/Nordbok 1978; Coe's drawing shows an example labelled in German; from casual observation, this seems to be unusual, and most are in English, but submin.com shows German and French, as well as the majority English models.
- ↑ Auer, Michel, The Illustrated History of the Camera, from 1939 to the present, Fountain Press, 1975