The image at right shows another rangefinder camera using 35mm film. However, it is no mere imitation of the Leica, as this camera by Edixa has a very obvious special feature: two lenses, separated by approximately the same distance as the human eyes, in order to take stereo pictures for a three-dimensional effect.
One of the most popular cameras of this type was the Stereo Realist camera, shown at left. Note that it has three lenses, not just two, side by side in the front; in a 3-D camera, one can employ the twin-lens reflex principle, and yet not have any parallax error!
Kodak even made one that was compatible with it, shown at right, and a stereo camera using 16mm film was sold as the View-Master Personal Stereo Camera.
Normal 35mm film cameras advance the film by four perforations for each frame, allowing a frame of 24mm by 18mm. The 36mm by 24mm frame introduced by Leica for 35mm still photography required advancing the film by eight perforations between each shot.
The format used by the Stereo Realist camera involved having each image consume five perforations. In that way, the left and right images of a pair could have two images between them belonging to other stereo pairs, and be about the right distance apart on the film to be behind the two lenses separated by the distance between the two eyes of a human being. This meant that a frame on the film was nearly square.
The distance between perforations on 35mm film is 4.75mm, which gives 1mm between frames in a 35mm movie, but 2mm between 35mm still photographs. If that could be trimmed down to 0.75mm, then the Stereo Realist format would allow for a nearly square frame of 23mm by 24mm. An image on Wikipedia of a strip of film exposed on such a camera, however, shows that instead the frame size is 22.5mm by 24mm.
Note that 15 times 4.75mm is 7.125 cm, or just over 2.8 inches, somewhat larger than the 2 1/2 inches often quoted as the standard interocular distance. The separation between lenses on a Stereo Realist camera, however, is not 71.25 mm but 69.28 mm. about 2.72756 inches. This could be achieved by curving the film between the two areas where it is exposed, but the lenses should be slightly closer together than the images on the film so that they are both covering the same area between the lenses.
Even in the Soviet Union, a stereo camera, the Stena, was made, as shown at right.
And below is a British 3-D camera, which billed itself as the only popular-priced 3-D camera in the world,
despite taking pictures on 127 film rather than 35mm film.
Note that it had a binocular viewfinder, presumably allowing one to view the scene being photographed in three dimensions.
Many other companies made stereo cameras for a time; and, of course, such cameras are not new, as the Stereopticon for viewing three-dimensional stereo images dates back to the nineteenth century.
Here, for example, is the No. 2 Stereo Brownie as an example of an early stereoscopic 3-D camera.
On the other hand, another way to save money when plunging into 3-D photography would be to obtain a 3-D adapter for your existing camera. Such adapters were available for a number of cameras; at left we see one made by Exakta specifically for their own 35mm SLR cameras, which also offered an attachment for the reflex screen allowing the shot to be taken to be viewed in three dimensions.
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The image above is from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License, and is thus available for your use under the same terms. Its author is Kenneth C. Zirkel. |
Taking three-dimensional stereo photographs is not the only unusual thing you can do with 35mm film in a suitable special camera. Shown at left is the Horizon (Gorizont), a Soviet camera from 1967 which took panoramic pictures using the same principle as the Widelux. The Widelux itself, a camera from Japan first available in 1959, is pictured at right. The image shows a Widelux F7, a later model from 1979.
A version of the Widelux that used 120 film instead of 35mm film was also available. Originally, these cameras went by the name Panon, and then later Panon Widelux. Below is an image of an earlier 120 film version of the camera which went by the name Panon.
Cameras operating on this basic principle, however, have been available
for some time. There was the Al-Vista camera from 1898 and the Kodak Panoram from 1899.
At left is a drawing of the Kodak Panoram which shows its lens turned to the photographer's left.
 Image by Danny H. from Pixabay |
Incidentally, Edixa cameras are products of the West German camera maker Wirgin Kamerawerk, which did not just make stereo cameras. They made rangefinder cameras and reflex cameras as well; they held off a couple of years before exporting their reflex cameras to the United States. There is some interesting background to this company; it was founded in 1920 in Germany; its owners fled to the United States to escape the Nazi regime, returning to Germany to re-establish the company after the war. One of their engineers, Heinz Waaske, ended up leaving for Rollei when Edixa had no interest in producing an innovative design of his that ended up as the Rollei 35. This camera had a simple viewfinder, allowing it to be very compact, and is illustrated on the left.
An Edixa Reflex is illustrated on the right,
and then an Edixa C rangefinder camera is also illustrated on the right.
Pictured at left is an American-made camera with a unique appearance. This image is from a 1939 advertisement; this camera, the original Univex Mercury, used 35mm film in special cartridges, but the Univex Mercury II camera, similar in appearance, and available after World War II, used standard 35mm cartridges.
Its chief distinctive feature was that it supported high shutter speeds, as fast as 1/1000 or even 1/1500 second. It was a half-frame camera, and it used a rotary focal-plane shutter. (Yes, it had interchangeable lenses.) It is to accomodate this shutter that the camera has its distinctive curved protrusion at the top.
And, of course, it is to its speedy shutter that it owes its name, Mercury being the "messenger of the gods", and thus being very fast.