Reisekamera

Reisekamera (meaning "travel camera"), or Continental View (meaning "Continental type of view camera"), type of folding wooden plate cameras popular in Europe around 1900, comprising a baseplate with a hinged front panel and a sliding rear plateholder (tailboard architecture), quite common from the 1880s until the middle of the 20th century. It can be seen as a subtype of the field camera.

Generally there are a number of limited movements like vertical and horizontal displacement of the lens on the front panel and tilting of the plateholder at the rear. The focusing is accomplished by sliding the plateholder on the baseplate (or base frame), usually assisted by a rack and pinion mechanism while observing the image on the focusing screen. Front and rear are connected by a square bellows slightly tapering to the front. Usually the baseplate is extendible for close-up work and to accomodate various focal length lenses. Although rarely supplied with a shutter other than the lens cap, some aquired an add-on shutter of the rollerblind variety often with pneumatic release, attached between the lensboard and the lens. Some models were equipped with a simple pneumatically remote driven shutter behind the lens mount. A few advanced models were manufactured with a focal plane shutter, recognizable by the necessary mechanical devices attached to each side of the rear plateholder panel.

These cameras came in a limited variety of sizes indicated by the size of the plate for which they were made, typically 18x24cm and 13x18cm. These plate cameras, having focusing screen at the film plane, require a sturdy tripod since they do not lend themselves easily for handheld photography like hand cameras. The name "travel camera" indicates the use for which they were intended, being collapsible for portability, they were designed for assignments outside the studio, but were no light handsome equipment for travelling tourists. Smaller variants, like those for 9x12cm plates, became popular among photography students at the turn of the century. Some Reisekameras were not designed as tailboard field cameras for rear focusing. Instead their focusing and all possible shift and maybe tilt movements had to be done by moving and adjusting the lensboard. The "Reisekamera" characteristics of this variant were a similar portability and the limited set of possible movements. Of course a few makers offered more sophisticated field camera types as "Reisekamera", "travel camera", "chambre de voyage" etc. going beyond the definition given here for the mainstream of these cameras.

A lot of these cameras originated from the region around Dresden in Germany where a rich camera industry was established since the 1860s, and especially the city of Görlitz was renowned for their professional cameras. Several makers were also in the Austrian capital Vienna. Several unnamed fine workshops made these view cameras to be supplied with brass lenses to wholesale companies who sometimes put their badge on the cameras, but more often than not, these cameras remain nameless, sometimes even their lenses. Since the mid-1920s other cameras types became common for amateur and professional use, but the old travel cameras stayed in use especially for purposes like making school class photos.

makers of the Reisekamera

• Eugen Loeber (Dresden)
• Ihagee (Dresden)
• Emil Wünsche (Dresden)
  • see also Emil Wünsche Reise-Cameras
  • see also Emil Wünsche Schüler-Apparat (student's camera)
• Ernemann (Dresden)
  • camera types Globus and Berry
• Richard Wittmann (Dresden)
• Goerz (Berlin)
• Sachs & Co. (Berlin)
• Bentzin (Görlitz)
• Neue Görlitzer Kamerawerke (Görlitz)
• Falz & Werner (Leipzig)
• Annacker (Köln)
• Voigtländer (Braunschweig)
• Deuber & Rau (Nuremberg)
• E. Suter (Basel)
• Georg Faltus (Vienna)
• Rudolf Lechner (Vienna)
• Josef Wanaus (Vienna)
• Felix Neumann (Vienna)
• Georg Joseph (Vienna)

makers of similar cameras, named "travel camera", "chambre de voyage" or else

• Ferdinand Franz Meyer (Dresden)
• J. Lancaster & Son (Birmingham)
• Stereoscopic Co. Ltd. (London)
• Compagnie Française de Photographie
• Derogy (Paris)
• FKD (Kharkov)

Several makers made a different type of Reisekamera or travel camera, with a fixed rear and a smaller sliding front standard that allows shift AND often also tilt movements.

makers of the fixed rear design

• Voigtländer (Braunschweig)
• Josef Vojta (Prague)
• Alfred Werner (Vienna)

makers of more sophisticated field cameras sold as "travel camera", "Reisekamera" or "chambre de voyage"

• Houghtons (London)
• Gaumont (Paris)
• H. Mackenstein (Paris)
• R. A. Goldmann (Vienna)

Links

• Josef Vojta, alternate "Reisekamera" design, at Design und Photo [1]
• Deuber & Rau Reisekamera and "no-name" Reisekamera at Kurt Tauber's [2]
• chambre de voyage, common tailboard architecture, explanation of Continental View type, on Antique Wood Cameras [3]
• chambre de voyage at Sylvain Halgand's [4]
• Reisekamera, unknown maker, at Horst Reimer's [5]
• Wittman Reisekamera, folded, at Fotomuseum [6]

Glossary Terms