Nadar Express Detective
The Nadar Express Détective is a detective camera for 9x12cm or 13x18cm plates, and adaptable for sheet film and even roll film. It was made by Paul Nadar, son of Félix Tournachon, the photographic pioneer 'Nadar', in about 1888.
The camera is wooden bodied. Examples of it have been seen with black leather covering.[1][2] Others have been seen in tropical finish, i.e. varnished mahogany without leather covering, with dovetailed joints reinforced with brass corner-plates.[3][4]
The camera has a six-speed shutter in front of the lens, the speeds labelled 1 ('Extra rapide') - 6 ('Trés lente'). There is a key to tension the shutter; the only release appears to be by an air-bulb attachment.
In the two 9x12cm examples seen, the lens is a Steinheil Gruppen Antiplanet, engraved '25mm'; this is the lens diameter, clearly not the focal length.[5] The 13x18cm example has a Demaria Anastigmat Optor 150mm f/4.5 - a very wide aperture for its time.[1] Focusing is by a dial on the left side, which focuses to 0.8 metre. There are Watson-type viewfinders, and tripod bushes, for vertical and horizontal orientation.
Whereas many cameras described as detective cameras have a plate magazine (allowing exposures without conspicuous changing of the plate), this one uses a plate back with a flap at the top for the insertion of a dark slide, and with a ground-glass screen.[1] One of the examples seen is apparently usable with either plates or sheet film,[3] an innovation. Another has been modified (by Nadar) with a roll-film back by Eastman.[4][6]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 13x18cm Express Détective with 150mm f/4.5 Demaria Optor and black leather covering, apparently for single plates in dark slides, in the stock of dealer Coeln Cameras
- ↑ 13x18cm Express Détective with blackleather at the George Eastman Museum.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 9x12cm Express Détective with '25mm' Steinheil Gruppen Antiplanet, in tropical wood finish, also in the stock of Coeln Cameras. The dealer states this camera is adapted for plates or sheet film.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 9x12cm Express Détective also with Gruppen Antiplanet and in tropical finish, with Eastman roll-film back in matching wood, and bearing both Nadar's and Eastman's maker's plates.
- ↑ Japanese collector 'Spiral' shows a Gruppen Antiplanet No.2 of 25mm diameter, and describes it as a 14cm f/6.2 lens. He shows diagrams of three generations of the lens, and photographs taken with his copy on a Bronica S2 and on a Speed Graphic. His lens is older than on the cameras cited here (serial no. 14xxx compared to 28xxx on the roll-film example at Westlicht), and with a slot for Waterhouse stops.
- ↑ Advertisement for the camera, showing model for plates and roll film, reproduced in the exhibition The Nadars, a photographic legend at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
