Beaugers

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Lucien Robert Jules Beaugers was a French press photographer of the 20th century. Dissatisfied with existing press cameras, he designed his own, the Lubo, which incorporates an ingenious mechanism to give ground-glass focusing more rapidly than in other cameras. Beaugers patented this and some other designs for accessories suited to the camera.

Lubo image by eBayer speedjack.dj (Image rights)

Links

• Four photographs by Beaugers in the CARLI digital collections of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The photographs are stamped on the reverse LUCIEN BEAUGERS, REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE, 22, Rue de Petrograd, PARIS 3e, Tel. Europe 41-77: Rue de Petrograd was later Rue de Leningrad (this address is engraved on the cameras) and is now once again Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg. It opens onto Place de l'Europe; hence the telephone exchange name.
• Beaugers' French patents, at Espacenet, the patent search facility of the European Patent Office:
  • Patent 838545, Procédé et dispositifs de mise au point dans les appareils photographiques ou cinématographiques (Process and devices for focusing in photographic or cinematographic cameras), filed by Beaugers 30 May 1938 and published 8 March 1939; this describes the unusual focusing arrangement used in the Lubo.
  • Patent 909143, Dispositif de réglage du moment d'allumage d'une lampe à éclair de magnésium dans les appareils photographiques (Mechanism regulating the moment of ignition of a magnesium flash-lamp for photographic cameras), filed 30 September 1944 and published 30 April 1946, describing a simple contact-closing device relying on a cam attached to the winding knob of a focal-plane shutter;
  • Patent 1031129, Télémètre, et son application aux appareils à télémètre couplé avec la mise au point de l'objectif (Rangefinder, and its application in cameras with the rangefinder coupled to the lens focusing), filed 18 January 1951 and published 19 June 1953. The patent describes a rangefinder comprising two lamps mounted on upright columns, which serve as battery-holders. These are mounted on each side of the focusing bed of a folding camera, and can swivel, but are constrained so that they both turn to the same angle inward from the lens' direction. A diagram is shown of an uncoupled version where each column has a partial gear-wheel, and these are simply meshed together; there is another diagram showing each lamp coupled to the rack-and-pinion focusing of the camera by a simple rigid strip. To focus, the photographer must adjust the focus until the two beams of light meet on the subject to be focused. Thus the device is a simpler design (and clumsier, though cheaper to make) to achieve the same end as the Focuspot accessory to the Kalart rangefinder, which was already available when Beaugers' patent was granted.
  • Patent 1158896, Lampe-éclair à ampoules multiples (Flash-lamp with multiple bulbs), filed 27 September 1956 and published 20 June 1958. The holder illustrated is for six bulbs. One made to a very similar design (but lacking the central selector knob) is shown attached to one of the Lubo cameras at Collection Appareils.