Speed Graphic.

I just posted this photograph here the other day.

Saturday, April 7, 1923. Japanese Cherry Trees.

 Miss Yukiko Haraguchi, daughter of Major General Hatsutaro Haraguchi, military attaché of the Japanese embassy, at the cherry trees at the tidal basin Washington, D.C.

I posted the same photograph on Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub.  As of right now, it has 677 up votes.  I'm often surprised by what is popular on the sub.

One thing that hadn't really occurred to me, and should have, is that this photo, and most of the press photos of that era, would have been taken by Speed Graphic type cameras, using 4x5" film. 35 mm cameras, which I'm quite familiar with, didn't become popular with the Press until the 1960s, which I really didn't realize, and the first 35 mm camera didn't come about until 1925 when Leica introduced them.  35 mm wouldn't even have existed at the time this photo was taken, which I should have known, as I discussed the history of cameras a bit here:

There were a wide variety of 35 mm cameras by the 1920s, and popular personal photograph got an enormous boost with the 1939 introduction of the Argus C3.  Through the lens reflex cameras made their appearance in the 1920s, but it wasn't until 1949 that the prismatic SLR was introduced, sparking a revolution amongst photography enthusiasts.  Nearly every serious camera maker soon introduced one, and they dominated in the serious photography market until the end of the film era.  My father bought a really good SLR Zeiss camera while serving in the Air Force, and the camea was so good that he used it hte rest of his life.

 Zeiss Contraflex.

Lens barrel for Contrafex, which fixed the existing lens on an extension for a telephoto effect.  I never actually saw this in use, and it does strike me as difficult to use.

My father also had a Yashica 120 mm camera. These cameras used big film for a finer detailed photograph, much the way "full frame" digital cameras due today (while most people don't use full frame digital cameras, the lack of one is a source of ongoing angst for Pentax fans, as Pentax does not make a full frame DSLR, just their regular DSLR).  It was a nice, if cumbersome, camera and my father used it less over the years, probably due to that.  And film became very difficult to obtain.

 Yashicaflex with lens caps on and viewer closed.

 Viewer cover opened.

Top of camera, with viewer opened.  You viewed the object through the top of the camera and saw the image reversed.

Digital photography seemed likely to put a big dent in SLR cameras, and it did at first, but now they've revived, particularly in the form of Canon cameras in the US.  But most of the old SLR manufacturers, save for Zeiss and Leica, which dropped out of the SLR market, still make one, and a couple of makers have entered the field who did not make film cameras.  But, just as I suppose more photos were taken with Kodak disposable and compact 35mms back in the day, more now are probably taken by cell phones.

Still, what a revolution in photography, even if things remain familiar.

The common press camera of this era was a large affair. This photo, of press photographers from the 20s, gives a good idea of what they were like.

Press photographers, 1920s.  The two on the right have some variant of Speed Graphics, although the size of their cameras is obviously different.

Massive cameras, they shot 4×5 inch film typically, although some shot larger or smaller film.  The quality of the film was excellent, which is what lead to this thread, as the quality of the photo posted above was heavily discussed.

I'm so used to 35 mm cameras, this didn't really occur to me.  It should have, as in old film you see the Speed Graphics as a prop all the time.  It frankly didn't occur to me that they'd had such a long run, however.

Speed Graphics were an American camera (hard to believe there even was such a thing) that was made by Graflex from 1912 until 1973.  They loaded with one massive negative, making them, in essence, the film equivalent of the full frame digital camera of today.  The quality of their b&w images was superior to any digital version of the same now produced.  Not surprisingly, therefore, they still have a following, even though they are huge, cumbersome, heavy, and take single negatives.

They were, however the press camera of their era, having nearly a 60 year run.

The camera was issued to U.S. Army combat photographers in World War Two as the PH-47.

Even by World War Two, however, the 35 mm was making some inroads, albeit mostly with private photographers.  A notable exception was famous photographer Robert Capa, who carried several Zeiss Contax cameras with him, including one that used 120 mm film and one that used 35 mm film.  He, of course, was a private press photographer.

Signal Corps photographers?  Speed Graphics.  

And most press photographers too.

Related Threads:

Cameras