Mandel PDQ Camera

Mandel PDQ Model H Instant Camera (developing tank missing) image by Mark Dalzell (Image rights)

View with left side open to show internals. image by Mark Dalzell (Image rights)

The Mandel PDQ Model H instant camera is a wooden-bodied camera for the ferrotype process, which uses paper roll media. It was made by the PDQ Camera Company, formerly the Chicago Ferrotype Company, owned by the brothers Louis and Manuel Mandel.

It might be seen as the successor to the company's Mandel-ette camera; like that, the PDQ was intended for making quick, cheap portrait photographs, for example by street and fairground photographers. The PDQ has a better lens and shutter than the Mandel-ette however, and so would allow more flexibility of application than the earlier camera. The camera pictured here has a Schneider Radionar and Prontor-SV shutter, with speeds 1 to 1/200 second plus 'B' and 'T', a self-timer and a PC flash terminal. Another example with a 114mm f/4.5 Wollensak Raptar and Wollensak Betax shutter, with times 1/2 - 1/100 second, plus 'B' and 'T', was offered for sale at Westlicht; These are both front-element focusing lenses.

After making an exposure, the crank on the side of the camera would be wound, to pass the exposed length of paper into the developing tank (attached to the bottom of the camera body, toward the rear). The knob below the crank would then be pulled out, against spring tension, to operate the knife to cut the paper.

All the examples of the camera seen are 'Model H', so it is not clear how other models differ, or if they exist.