SCAT

Scat camera image by Rick Soloway (Image rights)

The SCAT all metal camera was made by Italian manufacturer Società Construzioni Articoli Tecnici in Rome, from 1947 until the early 1950s. It makes 8x11mm images on 16mm film, wound from a supply cassette to a take-up one. Mistermondo shows four examples of the camera. The earliest (serial no. 333) has a sliding control (on the bottom, if the film advance knob is on the top, as shown here), with positions marked '1', '2' and '3'. This selects between three fixed apertures in a sliding plate. There is a single shutter speed. The shutter is tripped by turning the film advance knob backward.

The second example does not have the aperture slider, but the slot for it in the body is still there, and a plate is screwed over it. The camera was supplied with yellow and green filters, which would allow some exposure control. The third example does not have the slot at all, and again has two filters. This example has a black advance/shutter knob (the others have a silver one). These cameras are shown with paperwork giving their serial numbers as 2138 and 797 respectively; these seem out of sequence; perhaps the papers are not original to the cameras. Mistermondo's final example has no chrome plating, and has been covered with reptile skin-effect leatherette. Some of the engraving has also been filled with colour. The notes suggest none of this is original factory work.

• Dimension: 48x 43 x30mm
• Weight 70g (same weight as Minox IIIs), less than a third of Mikroma II (230g); it is the smallest 16mm camera.
• Film: 16mm single or double perforated film in two separate cassettes
• Lens: Aplanatic 25mm/3.5 GEM lens
• Focus from 1.5m to infinity (Focusing dial 1.5M, 3M, 5M, infinity)
• Simple slide-out frame finder

Links

• SCAT sold at the sixth Westlicht Photographica Auction, in November 2004.