Seneca 8
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images by PhotoShop Guru (Image rights) | ||
The Seneca Camera No. 8 or Seneca 8 was advertised as "wonderfully adaptable camera" with reversible and swing back. In 1911 it was delivered with a Seneca f8 triple convertible lens, a dust-proof Autic automatic shutter, and spirit level and brilliant finder mounted on the folding bed. It was available for 5 different plate sizes, including 4x5 and 5x7. The Camera had an ebony finish, covered in ebony walrus leather. The folding bed was mahogany in ebony finish. Metal parts were nickel-plated brass, the bellows was made of black Russia leather, lined with gossamer cloth. Rack & pinion focusing was possible as well as vertical shift.
The sample of 1918 shown above has a Sylvar No. 3A 1:6.3 Focus 166 Series III lens mounted in an Ilex Acme dial-set shutter.
Description by its owner PhotoShop Guru (slightly modified):
"The hybrid finder, a combination waist-level and sports finder was sold by Seneca as the Seneca Direct View Finder.
Sylvar lenses were made of "Jena" glass, the optical glass also used by Zeiss. Sylvars appear in catalogs starting 1919 and are a 3-3 symmetrical design, a "high grade Anastigmat and "carefully corrected for color and flatness of field." The elements can be used singly to double focal length.
The Seneca 8 was made 1906–1918. I could not find a listing for an Acme shutter or Sylvar lens before 1919. I believe the camera may have been in inventory somewhere with no lens or shutter in 1919, and sold with the Sylvar/Acme combination fitted.
In 1906 nearly all Seneca models (except a few Pocket Senecas) were offered only in polished Mahogany with red Russia leather bellows. Starting with the 1907 catalog, it appears that ALL Seneca models were available only in "Ebony" finish Mahogany with black Russia leather bellows.
The bellows appears to be composite or leatherette, not leather. I had read elsewhere that leather bellows fell out of favor c.1910 and were replaced with leatherette, even though through the 20s Seneca described their bellows as Russia leather. I made my new bellows from cloth treated to look like leatherette. I considered leather, but the original doesn't look like leather to me."
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| catalog image of 1909 scanned by Uwe Kulick (Image rights) |
