Blog Mirror: Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

 

Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

 

Give Your Boy Scout a Brownie, 1924

Saturday, April 15, 1944. Romania attacked from the air, Teenagers lose at Tarnopol, Politics in Minnesota, Hydro-Québec

PB4Y Photo Reconnaissance Liberators on a photo mission in the South Pacific , April 15, 1944.

PhoM1c E.S. Ujvarosy and PhoM1c R.M. Rhodes check their cameras, magazines, and data sheets before taking off on a mission in a Navy PB4Y photo reconnaissance plane. Cameras, left to right: F56-40”, two K-18’s 24”, K-17-12” and a K-17-06”. Lying on its side is vertical view finder. April 15, 1944.

The US 15th Air Force sent 500 sorties to Bucharest and Ploesti.  The war had reached the point where the Western Allies air attacks were now directly assisting the Soviet offensive in the east.

The Red Army took Tarnopol. German commander Gen. von Neindorff was killed in the fighting and nearly the entire German garrison was lost.

The original German commander at Tarnopal had deemed the defense hopeless and had reported it so.  The garrison of the doomed city was made up of new troops, most of whom were recent German teenage conscripts.  Only 55 of some 4,000 troops escaped the city.

British X class submarine, in this case the X25.

In Operation Guidance a British midget mine laying submarine, the X24 attacked the floating dock at Bergen, but the raid was not successful as the boat's charges were placed on a large German merchant vessel rather than the dock.

Aircraft from the USS Yorktown raided Chichijima and Iwo Jima.

African American troops on Bougainville, April 15, 1944.

The Minnesota Democratic Farm Labor Party was founded by the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the larger, yes larger, Farmer–Labor Party.

The left wing Farm Labor Party had been hugely successful in Minnesota. Founded in 1918, it's run to 1944 is one of the most successful state third party stories in the US.

Montreal Light, Heat & Power was taken over by provincial entity Hydro-Québec.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 14, 1944. Indian drama.

1940s, 1944, Bangladesh, Battle of Kohima, China Burma India Theater, Eastern Front, India, Indian Army, Indian National Army, Pakistan, The Law of Unintended Consequences, Ukrainian National Army, World War Two

Monday, April 23, 1923. No Dope in Canada.

I continue to be amazed by how the Tribune, in 1923, routinely issued headlines that were largely irrelevant locally.

Cannabis was added to the Canadian list of prohibited narcotics.

Banning marijuana was part of the spirit of the times, just like liberalizing marijuana laws are part of ours.  This act in Canada nationalized a ban long before this was done in the United States.

Hyeongpyeongsa was organized in Korea by merchants and social leaders with the goal of eliminating the Korean caste system.  At that time, Korea had a class of untouchables known as Baekjeong.

Poland opened up the Port of Gdynia on the Baltic in order to attempt to avoid the labor problems the country had been having in Danzig.

Women appeared in Turkish film for the first time.

Kodak introduced 16mm film.

Delaware authorized the Delaware State Police.

Hoover helped break ground for a model house.

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

Thursday, August 31, 1922. Flying cameras, murderous Communists, economic reprieve, drunk driving criminals, Russia of the recent past.

 

The Untied State's military was experimenting with areal cameras and gun cameras on this day in 1922.

Both would become airborne staples in future years.

Mongolian Prime Minister Dambyn Chagdarjav and his successor Dogsomyn Bodoo were executed, a fate common to early Communist who were often murdered on trumped-up charges by their own regimes.

Germany was granted a six-month reprieve of reparations payments by the Allied Reparations Commission.

Al Capone was arrested for hitting a taxicab while driving drunk.  He had also threatened to shoot one of the witnesses.

Life came out with an American Russian edition.  It'd be interesting to know what the contents of that issue were.  It depicted a Russia that was now in the past.

Mid Week At Work. The Cameraman

 

Monday, December 15, 1941. The filmed murder of Lativan Jews at Liepāja

War photographer Robert Capa with a 16mm movie camera, something we don't associate him with. 8mm film was literally 16mm cut in half for economy.

Mass murder of over 2,731 Jews at Liepāja Lativa was commenced by Einsatzgruppen, assisted by Lativan militia.  It would run for two days.  

The event was filmed by Kriegsmarine Sergeant Reinhard Wiener with his privately owned 8mm film camera.

Twenty-three communist party members were also murdered.

Amateur photography was a huge deal with Germans, and had been since cameras had become portable.  But movie film was another deal.  Sgt Wiener's film is accordingly unique. There is film of German authorities murdering Jews, but his was extensive and showed their full humiliation and abuse before being murdered.

The location itself was being used by the German Navy and many German Army soldiers were there.  The mood was festive by the Germans.

Things like this make it plain that by the early stages of Operation Barbarossa Germans knew what was going on and, while the recent meeting of German high officials emphasized their desire to complete the destruction of European Judaism, the program of mass extermination was fully in swing.  It was, moreover, already quite efficient.  And the attitude taken by the Germans was the plain acceptance of it. Authorities made no effort to stop it from being filmed here, and in other locations.  As film had to be processed commercially at home, it also meant that this was being done and was not being restrained.

So, in an event like this, regular German soldiers and sailors witnessed it, some filmed it, and some took their stories back home with them.  Others effectively published it by having what they recorded in film processed.

Things like this also make it plain that in much of Eastern Europe at least some percentage of the local population was willing to participate in Germany atrocities aimed at the Jews.

The Red Army retook Klin.

The following, from Today In World War Two History:

The American Federal of Labor adopted a policy of abstaining strikes in war industries for the duration of the war.

Universities started to go to three year courses of study for Bachelor degrees by full year courses of study.  This must have kicked in during the Spring, as the Christmas break was commencing.

The Soviet government returned to Moscow.  Stalin had never left.

Today in World War II History—December 15, 1941

The British Army encamped at Bir Halegh el Elba.

The British allowed 600 Japanese nationals to leave Singapore on a ship chartered by the Japanese government.

The Japanese attempted to land a reconnaissance party across the Lye Mun Channel at Hong Kong but were completely repulsed.  Japanese artillery strikes commenced.

Showing that yesterday's Coast Guard depth charge run wasn't as absurd as it might have sounded, a Japanese submarine shelled Kahului, Maui.  Another shelled Johnston Island, striking fuel at a seaplane base there.

The decision was made to hold this year's Rose Bowl at Durham, North Carolina.

All four American radio networks broadcast We Hold These Truths.

The radio program was in celebration of the anniversary of the Bill of Rights and had been planned prior to December 7.  An inquiry to the government on whether it should go forward brougth a reply that Franklin Roosevelt thought the program more important than ever.

Admiral Kimmel's illustration appeared on the cover of Time.  He'd already been relieved of his command in the Pacific.  Newsweek had a cover photo of a battleship noting that the "U.S. fleet's guns blaze", which wasn't true at the time.

A "Junior Miss" appeared on the cover of Life, which had obviously been laid out prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A test air raid drill was held in New York City.

Panoramic Photograph Equipment?

We have a category here called "The Big Picture" that features panoramic photographs and, for that matter, panoramic photos are also a separate category item here.  We like them.

Camp Kearney Remount Station, California.  December 1917.

Indeed, we like them so much we've used in them for our various blogs for header or footer photographs.

Big Horn Springs, Thermopolis Wyoming.  April 8, 1918. This is our header photograph for our Railhead blog.

But in spite of that, there's some things we don't know about them.

Laramie, Wyoming.  October 1908.  This is the header for our Painted Bricks blog.

And one of the principal things we don't know is what the photographic equipment used to make these photographs was.

Panoramics were enormously popular from the late 19th Century up through World War Two.  After that, for some reason, they really faded from the scene, and even though you'll occasionally see them today, and you can in fact make them with your Iphone, they aren't what they once were.

How were they done? The camera equipment was obviously special for them, but I can't really find out anything about it.  A search on the topic reveals very little in the way of information.

Advertisement for early panoramic camera.  I have no idea in general what panoramic cameras were like.

If you know, comment below.  We'd like to know how these were done.

Holscher's Hub: Some of the old ones.

Holscher's Hub: Some of the old ones.

Some of the old ones.

Holscher's Hub: Some of the old ones.

Some of the old ones.

Holscher's Hub: Some of the old ones.

The Photographer

Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work: Photographing the Punitive Expe...

Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work: Photographing the Punitive Expe...

The lonliness of the Pentax user. . . not even a "dummies" book.

(Over)acclimating to technology

One of the things that gets cataloged here a lot are technological changes.  How technology, specifically computer technology, has worked a change in my own daily life became abundantly clear to me this pat week. Frankly, I don't think all of the changes are universally good either, which may seem surprising for somebody who is running a blog.

 Amishman, 1940s.  The Amish are a well known North American religious group (Anabaptist) that have restricted their use of technology. Widely misunderstood, the religious concept at work has to do with the use of things that would reduce a human's humbleness and therefore their focus on devotion.  As we become more and more technological, the more a person has to wonder if the Amish don't really have it right on at least recognizing that technology may offer, at some point, as many dangers as it does benefits.

For one thing, this is a new computer.  This computer came about as I recently went from a Pentax K-x to a Pentax K-3.  It's a great camera, but I'm frankly still learning how to use all of its features, and as it's a fairly complicated camera, I probably never will.  Be that as it may, I like it.  And part of the liking it is that not only can you take really good pictures with it, but you aren't leased to film, the way we were with earlier film cameras.

However, because of certain new features in it, it wouldn't work with my old computer, which was truly ancient.  It was in the category of PC's that had an operating system that was supposed to be updated some time back, as it was no longer supported by Microsoft, but as it was working, and as computers are expensive, I didn't do it.  Well, I finally had to as the software for the K-3 was not supported by the old operating system. So one technology lead to another.

That meant, for a variety of reasons, that I was without a home computer for about a week.  That should have been no big deal, but it was oddly unsettling.  This was, in no small part, because I've grown used to checking the computer early in the morning, when most of this stuff is written, and also checking it sometimes in the evening as well.  In other words, I've become habituated to that, and anything you are habituated to you do in place of something else.

Indeed, anything that you are habituated to, you are dependent upon to some degree.  I could easily live in a house with no television, and I only listen to the radio while in a car (although now I frequently listen to podcasts, which is another habituation) but the computer I really noticed not being here.  Not good, in some ways.

Taking this further, last weekend I was in Denver.  I'm not really keen on Denver, but I was there with my family and we went to REI, the big outdoor sports store.  REI has a great store, and a great catalog.  I first became acquainted with both through a college friend, who was a big outdoorsman (and still is).  We went down to Denver, probably in 1983 or 84, and went to REI, which we did frequently thereafter.

At that time, REI was in one of the neighboring towns around Denver, not Denver proper, although where one begins and the other stops is questionable.  Most people would have said we were in Denver.  At any rate, it was in what had been built as a grocery store at the time, but it was amazing, or perceived that way in any event.

Now, REI is in Denver, in a trendy nice area near the aquarium, and it's new bigger store is in a building that had been built as a power plant a century ago.  It's a nice store, but visiting it just doesn't have hte same excitement it once did.  There may be a variety of reasons for that, including that I"m just older, but while there I texted (technology again) my old friend and noted that I was there, and that it just wasn't as exciting as it had been back when.  He texted back that "the internet has ruined the experience".

 Spacious interior of the current REI outlet in Denver.

I hadn't thought of that, but I really think he's right.  It has.  Not completely, but partially.

Now, when you want something, there's none of the sense of scarcity of the item  or the wonderment in finding it.  In a way, of course, that's good.  But at the same time, there was something sweet about finding what you wanted, or even what you liked but didn't know you wanted, and which was difficult to get.  The effort, or just the surprise, meant something.  Now, that's all gone.  In its place, we look up everything on the net and know its whereabouts right away.  Again, that's not universally bad by any means, but it has given us a false sense of super abundance that makes us less appreciative of anything we have or seek to acquire.  That would include, I feel, even the acquisition of knowledge, as now we just "Google it".

While in Denver, as I have several times recently, we made frequent use of the Google Maps navigation feature which allows for voice directions.  This is a nifty feature, but I've found its had a direct impact on my sense of place and direction, both of which have always been very good.

I've always been able to navigate my way around any place, including any city, simply by looking at maps and mentally planning a route.  Now, because of Google Maps, I frequently don't, just having my Iphone do the work.  I've found that this has actually messed significantly with my sense of place and direction, as when I depart from it, I don't have a real good sense of where I am.  Usually, if I go to a place once, I know how to get there, but now it would seem this is less certain.  I don't like it.

Fortunately I can get back to normal simply by not using it, but it was disturbing to see how very quickly I'd become acclimated to it. This is particularly disturbing as I feel that this is one of the many technological things that has the impact of taking us a bit further from the natural world, really, which as I noted the other day has the impact of creating a world that's contrary to our natures.

All in all, while technology definitely has its benefits,  I do question if we can reach the point where it's overall detrimental to us.  Indeed, I think we may have already done that.  We don't have a really good history of self restraint.  Most of us will not take the view of the Amishmen, and it risks making us less in tune with where we are, or even who we are.  Indeed, an entire younger generations doesn't notice where they are or who they are with at any one time, as their heads are buried in their phones.  This trend is not only negative, but to paraphrase from Pogo, we have met the enemy, and its our technology.  Not completely, yet, but partially.