Dec 28, 2010

A. Laverne & Eastman Interchangeable View camera

Part of the Xmas holliday I have spent on writing an article about the Eastman Interchangeable View camera. Theme is that Eastman's left his 'blue ocean strategy' temporary and switched to a 'red ocean strategy'. His attempt to introduce film photography during the mid 1880s was not succesful. His conclusion was that he needed to aim at a new public: the snapshooter and family photographer. To put this strategy into practice would take several years, but during this time the company had to earn money. Eastman decided to fill the gap with a traditional product for a traditional market: field cameras for the serious photographer. And that is the Eastman Interchangeable View.
I have to take the photos to go with the article and select other illustrations and then I it ready to go to the editor of Photohistorisch Tijdschrift.

When researching my new camera I found some interesting information about A. Laverne & Co., who made the shutter on my Eastman Interchangeable View camera. It doesn't fit into my article, so I share it here.
Arthur Léon Laverne was a French lantern manufacturer who took over around 1877 the business of two optical instument makers, Albert Gasc and Alphonse Charconnet. In 1887 he formed a partnership with the optical and photographic dealers Eugène Gaston Clément and Georges Arthur Gilmer. In 1890 Laverne retired and sold his business to Clément and Gilmer in april. (Source, source)
The shutter on my camera was patented Februari 24, 1887 (181.782). See the patent text and illustrations here. The illustrations are in the last part of the book. 
The shutter works between the lens element, through the slit for waterhouse stops. It has times for 1, ½, ¼, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 en 1/100 second. The fitting lens is made by “A. Laverne & Co. Clément & Gilmer Sucrs”. It has an irisdiafragma and slit for the shutter. De diafragmrange goes from 8 to 64.

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