Simda
Simda is a company founded in Paris by Simone and Daniel Guébin (they were wife and husband; the company name is a combination of their names),[1] in 1955, according to Collection d'Appareils.[2][3] An advertisement from 1956 gives the company address as 13 bis Rue du Bel-Air, in Perreux-sur-Marne, a residential area; the building still stands.
The company was sold in the early 2000s when its then owner, Gérard Tabarly, retired, but the firm became bankrupt soon after. In 2004, the company was restarted by Tabarly with his son Sacha.[3] The company is still trading (as at June 2012), from the Rue du Bois Galon, close to its origial location, and produces projection equipment, still including slide projectors.[4]
The company is known for only one camera, the Panorascope, a stereo camera for panoramic views on 16 mm cine film. Two models of this camera exist, though McKeown states that less than 2500 were made.[1]
A stereo projector for 35 mm slides made by Simda was sold at Westlicht.[5][6]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 McKeown, James M. and Joan C. McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 12th Edition, 2005-2006. USA, Centennial Photo Service, 2004. ISBN 0-931838-40-1 (hardcover). ISBN 0-931838-41-X (softcover). p894.
- ↑ Notes on Simda and the Panorascope at Sylvain Halgand's Collection d'Appareils Photo.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A press release (in French) at the Simda French homepage states that the company was started in 1963, but this cannot be correct, given the dates of patents for the Panorascope and the slide-mounts used with it.
- ↑ Simda homepage.
- ↑ Polysynchro stereo 35 mm projector with 90, 105 and 150 mm lens pairs, sold at the twelfth Westlicht Photographica Auction, on 17 November 2007; dated by the auctioneer to about 1960.
- ↑ French Patent 1261001 in the name of Daniel Guébin, Utilisation des miroirs froids et des écrans dégradés dans les systèmes de projection (Use of 'cold mirrors' and graduated screens in projection systems (stereoscopy and cross-fade)), filed 1960 and granted 1961; at Espacenet, the patent search facility of the European Patent Office. The patent describes the use of mirrors and graduated screens deposited under vacuum to give high light output while protecting the projected material from infra-red (i.e. heat), and also their use in accomplishing cross-fade transition between slides.
