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, having front panel or rear plateholder focusing attached to a baseplate (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.

They have simple adjustments to compose the image on the filmplate at the rear. The camera is focused by sliding lens or film on the base (or base frame), and observing the picture on a focusing screen. A bellows are attached among the front and rear part. Usually the baseplate can slide out for focusing. Some models was equipped with a simple pneumatically-driven remote control shutter behind the lens mount or curtain shutter on the filmplate.

These cameras came for various sizes of the plate for which they were made, like 18x24cm and 13x18cm. These cameras required a sturdy tripod since they are not for handheld photography like hand cameras. The name "travel camera" indicates the use for which they were intended, being collapsible for portability, 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.

These cameras originated in France and England, but later many came in Germany or Austria. 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