Reisekamera

The Reisekamera or Chambre de Voyage (German and French for "travel camera") or Continental View (meaning "Continental type of view camera") is a subgroup of the 19th century wooden field cameras. Most collectors associate tailboard camera architecture with the term Reisekamera, but some of these travel cameras had front panel focusing instead of the tailboard cameras' rear focusing. The Reisekamera was quite popular in Europe for several decades around 1900, and produced until the middle of the 20th century. The camera type stayed in use at least until the 1970s for purposes like school class photos.

The common tailboard variant

The common variant of the Reisekamera is not comparable with the modern light and extremely flexible field cameras. Some more wood was used for its design, giving it more weight and making it resembling contemporary atelier cameras. But unlike studio cameras the travel cameras were foldable for portability.

The shape of the Reisekamera's common tailboard form is distinctly square, having equally sized front- and rear-panels, both attached to an equally wide base-board. Front and back is connected by an (often almost non-tapering) bellows. The front panel carries the horizontally movable lens plate and the tiltable rear panel takes the plate holder which is interchangeable with a focusing screen. Focusing is carried out by sliding the rear panel along the base plate while observing the image on the screen, usually accomplished by a rack and pinion mechanism. The camera folds flat, after the rear panel is brought forward to the lens panel, by folding the hinged base board up covering the rear panel.

The Reisekamera, believed to have originated in central Europe, influenced by, and to a high degree perfected in Germany from 1860 (re.: Kleffe, Lagner), reached its peak popularity between 1895 and 1914. The general design distinguishes itself, as most notably demonstrated by the consequent description found in Kadlubecks Kamera Katalog, as a wooden camera with a rear baseboard extension "Auszug hinten", as opposed to "Laufboden Kamera" with front struts, generally known as the view camera or field camera having a noticeably smaller front panel

a travel camera's front with Rodenstock lens

The common tailboard variant of the Reisekamera was derived from a very early collapsible camera design by camera maker Judge. It was collapsible just for portability, not for maximum compactness. It was intended as tool for outside the studio, as camera for the advanced amateur or as start equipment for photography students. It was available in different sizes. Plate Sizes for which travel cameras were made were for example 18x24cm and 13x18cm. Student cameras were made for the smaller 9x12cm plate format. The cameras required a sturdy tripod since they were not for snapshot photography like hand cameras. Thus they were all but ideal for travelers, voyageurs, Reisende, all but what their names travel camera, chambre de voyage and Reisekamera were promising.

The Reisekamera's tailboard variant is, regardless of the maker, quite similarly built and of almost standardised design. Generally there are a number of limited movements: at the back, the film plate may be tilted and turned slightly to adjust perspective, and at the front the lens plate may slide vertically and horizontally, without the bellows obstructing the light from the lens reaching the film, due to the non-tapering bellows, as opposed to the field camera where the whole front is free to move as required, including the narrow throated bellows. Usually the base plate is extendible for close-up work and to accommodate various focal length lenses, the double extension feature. Although the camera, when new, rarely was supplied with a shutter, the lens cap usually sufficed, some acquired an add-on shutter of one sort or another. Still, some of the most sophisticated Reisekameras were built with an integral focal plane shutter, a huge mechanism incorporated in the rear panel, only the brass controls visible on either side. Some of the less sophisticated models were equipped with a simple pneumatically-driven remote control shutter behind the lens mount.

When using the camera a black cloth is a helpful and often necessary requisite to keep stray light out while observing the image on the focusing screen. The focusing screen is replaced by the plate holder when the picture is composed and focused. The lens is capped with its cap or an auxiliary shutter device, and the dark slide removed from the plate holder. When all is clear, the cap is removed for the required exposure time and replaced, or the shutter is opened for the required exposure time. The dark slide replaced and the plate holder removed and brought to the darkroom for development and copying.

Other designs

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 same limited set of possible movements as known from the tailboard variant.

Of course a few makers offered more sophisticated field camera types as "Reisekamera", "travel camera", "chambre de voyage" etc., thus going beyond the definition given here for the mainstream of these cameras.

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]

References

Glossary Terms