Lumiclub and Lumière 6×6
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| Lumiclub Lumière image by Simon Spaans (Image rights) |
The Lumiclub is a 6×6cm camera made by the French maker Lumière. The body is big and heavy. The lens and shutter assembly is mounted on a telescopic tube. The lens is a coated four-element Berthiot Flor 75/3.5 and the leaf shutter a synchronised Royer with speeds 1 to 1/300 second, plus 'B'. There is a lever film advance, with double exposure prevention, but not coupled to the shutter. The camera has two viewfinders, a reverse-Galilean finder and a waist level brilliant finder, placed symmetrically, under a hood. The Lumiclub has a built-in extinction meter called Lumipose. It can take 4.5×6cm pictures, with a mask in the film plane, the framing being indicated in the finder.
The Lumière 6×6 is a cheaper alternative to the Lumiclub. It is a 6×6cm folding camera based on the same body. The extinction meter and the two finders are similar, but it has no hood to cover the waist-level finder. The lens is a Lumière Spector 80/4.5, and the shutter has speeds 1/10 to 1/250 second, plus 'B'. The metal trimming, chromed on the Lumiclub, is painted black on the Lumière 6×6.
Vial says that the body cast of the Lumiclub and Lumière 6x6 was probably the one Pontiac had developed for the Versailles project. Some elements supporting this theory are the bulkiness of the body, originally designed for 65mm perforated film (alias 70mm film), and the two finder windows, that are reminiscent of the coupled rangefinder intended on the Versailles.
Bibliography
- Vial, Bernard. Histoire des appareils français. Période 1940–1960. Paris: Maeght Éditeur, 1980, re-impressed in 1991. ISBN 2-86941-156-1.
Links
In French :
- Lumiclub on www.collection-appareils.fr by Sylvain Halgand
- Lumiclub and Lumière 6×6 among Lumière cameras, and pictures of the Lumiclub in this page at G. Langlois' site
- Lumiclub and Lumière 6×6 among Lumière cameras at ClicClac
- Lumiclub at Stereocollection
