Lubo
  
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| images by eBayer speedjack.dj (Image rights) |
The Lubo[1] is a press camera for 9x12 cm plates, made in France from 1941, until 1952 according to Collection Appareils.[2] The camera was designed by French photographer Lucien Beaugers, from whom it takes its name. A very small number were made: McKeown estimates only 20-25;[3] however, Arnaud Saudax (at Collection Appareils) doubts this estimate, noting that the example in his own collection is numbered 193.[2]
The camera allows ground-glass focusing by an ingenious method, which Beaugers patented.[4] He argued that existing focusing aids in single- and twin-lens reflex cameras were either bulky or slow to use, and made it hard to follow action (presumably referring to the dim and left-right reversed view in a ground-glass). He criticised rangefinder mechanisms for making cameras more expensive and more difficult to use. His mechanism erects a ground-glass screen above the plate-holder, and tilted somewhat downward; simultaneously, the lensboard is tilted down (on a short bellows), so that the lens casts its image on the focusing screen. The lens is focused using a helical mechanism (part of the camera, not of the lens[3]). After focusing, the lens is swung back to its taking position and the focusing screen simultaneously folds away. For viewfinding, the camera relies on a frame-finder, with parallax-error correction.[3]
The camera has a cloth focal-plane shutter, with speeds from 1/6 to 1/1000 second (in the early example shown at Collection Appareils) or 1/2000 second later.[2][3] McKeown describes the camera with a Berthiot Flor 135 mm f/3.5 lens, and examples with this lens have been seen at auction.[5][6] Both of the examples at Collection Appareils have a 120 mm f/4.5 Flor,[2] however, and a camera with this lens was offered for sale at Ebay in 2015.[7] The plates are held in a removable magazine.
 
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| with flash units, side panel detail images by Richard Bugg (Image rights) |
Notes
- ↑ Both McKeown and the auctioneer Rahn name the camera the 'Lubo 41', but the camera itself is only engraved Lubo.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Collection Appareils shows two examples of the Lubo, both with the 120 mm f/4.5 Flor:
- Early Lubo (described as primitive by writer Arnaud Saudax);
- Later Lubo, with flash-holder also by Beaugers, and leather case.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 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). p112-3.
- ↑ French 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; at Espacenet, the patent search facility of the European Patent Office.
- ↑ 'Lubo 41' with 135 mm f/3.5 Flor, sold at the 7th Photographica auction by Rahn AG, on 24 May 2008.
- ↑ Lubo with 135 mm f/3.5 Flor offered for sale by Auction Team Breker at the auction 'Photographica & Film', 26-27 September 2008.
- ↑ Lubo with 120 mm f/4.5 Flor offered for sale at Ebay, February 2015 (item 261791380963). The same camera was previously offered for sale by Breker in October 2013 (the listing is at the LiveAuctioneers site.
