A source of inexpensive large-format cameras

[Neil Barnes]

While browsing through some old bound magazines - The Amateur Photographer and Photography, 1923 - I came across the following advert.

My google-fu is not strong on this, but from what I can see, a skilled manual worker would have an income of perhaps sixty shillings a week - three pounds. A person in the professions would of course earn significantly more - but even so, these are not cheap items.

As it happens, I have a Sanderson Tropical, but in quarter-plate rather than 4x5.

Interesting to see the number of formats available - and both plates and film seemed be in common use. What is fascinating is the discussions on how many candlepower the oil-lamp for your home-made enlarger should be. So much we take for granted: then the only exposure meters used the 'pull a bit of paper out and see how long before it went dark' technique; panchromatic film not yet common; development by factorial time; cold-weather developers...

Just off to see if the time machine is working yet!

Neil

[Thingy]

Nice to see Zeiss lenses available at such reasonable prices. Should you get you time machine working, I quite fancy that Verascope with a Tessar lens. My first SLR (Practika L2) has a Tessar f2.8 lens.