Sinclair

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Advertisement for the aluminium Traveller Una and other Sinclair products, Photograpms of the Year, 1938. Scan by Dirk HR Spennemann (Image rights)

James A. Sinclair & Company Ltd was a camera-maker in London from about 1904. Sinclair himself was at one time an employee of Adams before setting up his own firm. Sinclair was also involved in Newman & Sinclair, at the same time as Sinclair & Co. was operating independently. N&S made (among other products) shutters, which are seen on many of Sinclair's cameras. Sinclair also retailed photographic goods of other makers.

Sinclair is best-known for the Una series of wooden-bodied folding plate cameras in various sizes, including tropical models, and the aluminium-bodied Traveller Una, pictured here in a contemporary advertisement.

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Examples seen at auction

• 6.5x9 cm Tropical Una, about 1915, mahogany with brass binding and fittings, with Ross lens and Newman & Sinclair 'Perfect' shutter, sold at the November 2004 Westlicht Photographica Auction in Vienna. There are focus scales on both sides of the bed; it is probable that the lens is a combinable lens, as referred to in the advertisement illustrated, and fitted on the Traveller example below; one of the scales shows focus for one lens component used alone as an 8-inch long-focus lens. There is a small Watson viewfinder on the bed, and front-rear and left-right spirit levels on the front standard. The camera has front rise and tilt.
• 4x5 inch Tropical Una No. 2, about 1920, with 7¼-inch f/4.5 Ross Xpres, sold at the December 2010 Westlicht auction. Rack-and-pinion focus on the bed, with an ivory focus scale to two yards, with depth-of-field markings (the camera has triple extension, so could focus rather closer). There is a seperate infinity mark for use with a telephoto attachment. There are levels (by Taylor, Taylor & Hobson) on the standard. The camera has no shutter (as shown; the lens may have been exchanged), and no viewfinder other than the ground glass.
• 4x5 inch Tropical Una No. 2 with Dallmeyer Stigmatic series II lens and behind-the-lens telephoto attachment, sold at the May 2011 Westlicht auction. This example has no focus scale or levels, but is otherwise similar to the camera above.
• 6.5x9 cm Traveller Una essentially as pictured above, sold at the December 2009 Westlicht auction. The camera has a Ross Combinable lens (when combined, a 4¼-inch f/5.5; when one component used, an 8-inch f/11) and N.S. 'Perfect' shutter, with speeds 1/2 - 1/50 second, and a compendium hood. It is dated in the auction listing to 1927, but the serial number of the lens (137291) suggests this should be 1937.