Weenie

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The Weenie is a wooden bodied, folding plate camera made by Thornton-Pickard from about 1908.[1] Older cameras have red bellows and a brilliant finder mounted centrally on top of the shutter body: later ones have the finder at one side. The finder rotates for horizontal or vertical orientation of the camera; a ground-glass screen can also be used. The front standard simply pulls forward on the rails to a focusing scale. It has front rise.

Sources differ as to what sizes the camera was made in. An advertisement in the 1911 British Journal Almanac does not state the size of the camera! It lists four available models: with an Achroplanat (i.e. achromat) lens and single extension bellows; with a Rectoplanat (i.e. Rapid Rectilinear) lens and single extension; or either lens with double extension.[2] All the models have an Eclipse shutter, which is described as giving 'B', 'T' or Instantaneous exposures; the illustration in the advertisement shows a shutter with three Instantaneous speeds (1/25 - 1/100 second), so this Eclipse is different from the Everset shutter of the later camera shown here. The advertisement offers leather bellows (but leatherette covering). The camera is of an intermediate style; with an old-pattern brilliant finder, for example, but mounted to one side. Historic Camera lists the same four models, and states clearly that the camera is only quarter plate (3¼x4¼ inch).[1] Wood and Brass shows an example of the later style, described as from 1913, and states that it is quarter-plate.[3]

The example pictured here is the later style, and has an achromat lens, and an I/B/T everset shutter. This is the only specification given by McKeown,[4] who gives half-plate (4¾x6½ inch) as the only size. It seems likely that this is an error; even in 1908, few people would describe a half-plate camera as 'weenie'.

There is another camera in the Science Museum Collection described as having an Aldis Uno anastigmat and Lukos II shutter.[5] The catalogue listing gives the height of that camera as 144mm (about 5⅝ inch), so is presumably quarter-plate (it is not tall enough to be half-plate).


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Weenie (old style) at Historic Camera.
  2. Thornton-Pickard advertisements from the 1911 British Journal Almanac, including the Weenie (p201 - 'the finest 21-shilling camera made'), reproduced at Pacific Rim Camera
  3. Weenie (later style) at Wood and Brass
  4. 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). p919.
  5. Catalogue listing for a Weenie (just text) in the Science Museum Collection