Speed-O-Matic

image by John Kratz (Image rights)

The Speed-O-Matic Corporation was a camera maker based in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. In late 1947 it produced the Speed-O-Matic bakelite "instant" camera using direct-positive film packs. The camera had an extinction meter on its top, and different aperture stops could be selected.

The camera used double-sided film packs, so after one exposure the pack had to be removed and flipped, then re-loaded. Then the two exposed film sheets had to be transferred into a separate development tank. Processing required four different chemical solutions to be filled into the tank, then emptied back into storage bottles again—with water rinses between each step. Not unlike a pseudo TLR, perhaps this camera would be best classified as a "pseudo instant camera". The much simpler peel-apart system from Polaroid, introduced in 1948, turned the Speed-O-Matic into a forgotten curiosity.

After the company failed, the Dover Film Company purchased the molds for the camera and released a revised version as the Dover 620-A.

Links

• Speed-O-Matic user manual at Butkus.org
• The Speed-O-Matic at The Old Album
• Speed-O-Matic (and Dover) cameras at Oddity Cameras
• Dover 620-A and Speed-O-Matic at Marcy Merrill's Junk Store Cameras

WIth original instructions image by Inspiredphotos (Image rights)