Talk:Reisekamera

Double article? why?

Jan,

You, the author of the second variant of this article, see the Reisekamera as derived from the studio camera. But looking a little deeper into camera history these cameras were obviously derived from early portable camera designs. The earliest bellows cameras were made in 1839, and (according to Kleffe/Langner) simple predecessors maybe even used by Niépce. Of course this invention lead soon to portable camera constructions. One of the camera designs is shown by R.C. Smith, looking almost like the direct predecessor of the Reisekamera.

Another issue is that Reisekameras were not just made with non-tapering bellows. A lot were made with tapering bellows. And the student camera or Schülerkamera (German) became a common variant, with 9x12 plate format the predecessor of one common European plate camera size before WWII.

The non tailboard camera types of the Reisekamera are missing in the second text variant

I've put most of Your text into the upper variant of the article. Thus, sorry, it looks like we have a little redundancy. U. Kulick 18:51, 8 July 2009 (EDT)

Difference with "field camera"

Isn't "Reisekamera" the German word for a "field camera", which is a view camera with which you can go to the field? When I read the description of "field camera" in this or this page at Wikipedia, I don't understand the difference between both concepts. --Rebollo fr 07:06, 3 January 2009 (EST)

No. Reisekamera is to be translated as "travel camera". The topic of the article is the type of camera that was marketed as a distinguishable kind of view camera mainly under the names "Reisekamera", "Reise-Camera", "Schüler-Kamera" (student's camera), "travel camera", "chambre de voyage", or under other names but with that characteristic camera design, mainly made around the year 1900, the Soviet FKD camera maybe even made until ca. 1975. The cameras were foldable for portablility and needed not that very heavy kind of tripod used for studio cameras. Thus not all portable view cameras with the name "Reisekamera", "travel camera" or so followed the mainstream tailboard architecture with rear focusing, some had just the difference of front focusing, for example a Voigtländer Reisekamera of 1890, others tended to be more sophisticated field cameras, for example the Houghtons Ensign Reisekamera (both examples in Abring Vol. 1) as well as other English and French camera models. "Continental View" is another term common for the type of travel camera meant in this article. U. Kulick 13:57, 3 January 2009 (EST)