Scheimpflug, graveyard and early Eastman cameras

I'm in the first week of my summer vacation, so there is a lot I am busy with. First of all I am working on the Scheimpflug file on my website. I have 20 documents there, mostly articles from the Scheimpflug days, but also some later articles. It won't be everything that can be found on Theodor, but all the important publications about him are there. As far as I know there is no other place on the net where all these documents can be found together, and I hope that other people who are interested in Scheimpflug will make good use of it. The pic shows a screenshot of the webpage.

The Scheimpflug file will go online around August 11, 2011, when the first part of my article will appear in print in the Photohistorisch Tijdschrift. From the editor I got message that the complete article will be published in two parts. Hurray for that! It will be a total of 10 pages, 6 for the text and 4 for illustrations.

When I was on the old cemetary of Roermond I missed a camera with swing back or swing lens panel. When photographing a rusted fence I would like to get the fence sharp from front to end, but the background as out of focus as could be. A swing back and the Scheimpflug rule would have done that, but now I had to use the tele setting of my zoom lens and use diafragm 2.8.

After the first shooting at the graveyard I went back the next day to retry some shots, but the light was different so no second chance to catch the first impression. I made some new pics and here's one of them.

At eBay there are two interesting cameras: a No. 1 Kodak with its case and an Eastman Interchangeable View.

Old cemetary photos

I have lived for over half a century in the vicinity of Roermond, but I never visited the old cemetary there before today. This morning I took my camera (digital) and gave it a try. Well, I was completely overwhelmed. It is large, neglected and beautiful, a true treasure trove of rusted iron ornaments, worn and crumbling stone slabs, large trees and a myriad of wonderful details. Time is almost tangible there. I hope nobody gets the idea to restore it. Man must become dust, iron must become rust and stone must crumble to sand. Time does it all and in this graveyard you can see it at work.
Enough of preaching, let's see some pics.

Scheimpflug article finally finished

It has taken me some time, but yes, this afternoon I finished my Scheimpflug article. What started as an idea about a short story to commemorate his 100th dying day, ended as a 6100 word article with 20 pictures. I just hope the editor is going to accept it, because it will take up about 9 or 10 pages. But I think it is worth the space. The story contains much information that is hard to find or expensive to get. Many original articles were published before the Great War and if you want to read them you have to order copies from a university. I believe a number of illustrations for my story have not been published for 90 or 100 years and some have been taken for me especially.

I intend to put all the sources and pictures on the internet, free for everyone to use, as far as rights permit. The written sources will be gathered in the Scheimpflug file, a special part of my http://www.kodaksefke.eu/ website. The photos will be available at Flickr. My article will contain a QR code to take you to the photos directly. I'm planning to make them public in August. The 22nd would be a good day, but it depends on the publication date of the Photohistorisch Tijdschrift. The files must be online when the journal drops on the doormat.

To celebrate the day I show you another nice pic of Theo with a Hargrave kite. The panoramic camera was attached between the rods of the kite, to protect it when the kite would crash.

Earliest flying machines & other antiques

The photo in my last blog led me to the book 'Buch des Fluges' by Hermann Hoernes, published in 1911. In it I found the photo of the man and woman with a Nikel kite, just as I had hoped. But to my surprise I found two more photos, made at the same location, with two other models of kites. The article of which they are part, is written by Theodor Scheimpflug, and he tells that he not just experimented with the Nikel kite, but also with the two other models. So now I have three Scheimpflug kite pics!
The old book is absolutely fascinating, with lots of articles and photos of the earlies aeroplanes and Zeppelins, blimps, balloons and kites. Here's one illustration from the book, so you can enjoy it a wee bit also. It's a pity I have to return it to the library of the university of Groningen...

I'm still busy with the Scheimpflug article. Information keeps popping up and I just can't ignore it. But this weekend I must give it the final touch and then it is ready. ...At least I think so... if no other facts creep into my computer or surprise me in the mail. We'll see.

The Boston Bulls Eye in wood finish and super condition went for a mere US $ 334. Not enough I would say, but the market makes the price, not I.
There are a few interesting old Kodaks on eBay just now. A No. 3 Kodak Junior and a No. 3 Zenith box. Both are not seen so very often, the Zenith being the rarest.

A little update

I'm still working hard om the Scheimpflug article, with new information popping up now and then. Now I am trailing down a photo of Theodor Scheimpflug with a Nikel kite. I have it in low resolution and am trying to get a better one. Also it would be nice to get a confirmation that the male in the pic is indeed Theodor.

Somewhere I did read that there was a woman who often accompanied Theo when he tested his kites and cameras, but I can't find it anymore. That annoys me terribly. I must have it somewhere...

The editing of the text is nearly done. I'm at nearly 5000 words and have 18 illustrations. Hope the editor of the journal won't mind.

At eBay there's a Boston Bull's Eye in very fine wood finish. Go see it. Only two days left. If you want one, get this one.

Scheimpflug update

Today is a good Scheimpflug day. This morning  a number of photographs from the Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen arrived. I also received a positive mail from Prof. Dr. Mayer, who published an article about Scheimpflug in Ophthalmic Research in 1994 and who is going to send me the documents he still has. All in all a lot of information and photographs is coming together, so much that it will be hard to choose what I will use and what not. But.... I have a new idea: the photos and illustrations that I cannot use will be available on Flickr. My article will contain a QR code, so everyone with a smartphone or webcam who has a QR code reader installed, can link directly to the extra pics.
At the moment the article has a length of 4100 words, too much for the 4 pages in the journal that is usual. I don't think I can reduce it to 2500 words, so I'm afraid it will be a two part story. Maybe that would be the best because I can use more illustrations then or they can be larger. Well, we'll see.

To celebrate the day I will share a photo already. Hope you like it. The pic shows the 8-lens panoramic camera attached to a blimp. From the door of the gondola the man has to hold the camera as horizontal as he can. This is the way the GoogleMaps of the Belle Époque was made.

Photo courtesy of Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen. And many thanks to Annemarie Maier for her great help! Here's a virtual bunch of flowers for you.

Sternwartestrasse 39 Vienna

Yes! I finally received a photo of the house in the Sternwartestrasse in Vienna where Theodor Scheimpflug lived until his death in 1911. Photohistory enthusiast Peter (full name know to the editor) of Vienna was so kind to take a very fine picture of the Jugendstil house, surrounded by the green foliage of trees. He also added a photo of the stone tablet that was attached to the house in 1913, in remembrance of Theodor and his pionering work for aero cartography.
At the moment I am not going to share the pics here. That has to wait for publication of my article. Sorry. As compensation for the great disappointment this must cause, I will give you the link to a website about Austrian, and especially Viennese photo history, with lots of photos of cameras and other equipment.

During the next days I will be editing my Scheimpflug article. It is not an easy story to tell because it is a mixture of technically complex descriptions, a chronological line and Scheimpflugs character and life. But I have a very good test reader (my wife) who without any hesitation puts her finger on every weak part that I dared to keep in the text.
At the moment I have 15 illustrations, which is quite a lot. 5 of them are original photographs, the other are reproductions from a book or articles and drawings from patents.

Early detective camera

There's a very interesting early detective box camera for sale at eBay. I don't know which model it is, but it certainly is one that is worth to have a look at. You will not be the only one, there are 5 bids already, price now is US$ 237, and still five days to go.

Busy, busy, busy....

Yep, I'm so busy with all sorts of things photohistoric that I barely have the time to update my blogpage.
First of all I wrote the first draft of the Scheimpflug article. I have to streamline it thorougly to get a good story with head, body and tail.
I got great help from a collector of postcards in Austia and from someone who is working at the Technisches Museum Wien. Many thanks to them.

Besides the writing of the Scheimpflug story I received a question from the New York staff of Discovery Channel about the Stereo Kodak Model 1 camera. Nice that they found me and trusted me so much as to ask me for information. They needed the answer within a day, so I had to dig up all I could find in the hour between supper and a visit to my mother in law. Nevertheless the information was much appreciated. One of these days I'm going to update the page on my website with the info I found.

Also I tried to find something about the Blair Folding Kamerette camera, or Blair 400, as it is called sometimes (see illustration on the right). There's not much information about it on the internet or in the books I have, but I dug up an interesting article about Blair in the Photographist no. 47 of 1980. You can find it here.

Then Charlie Kamerman was so kind to send me a link to his page with all the wooden boxes in which the 7 original stringset Kodaks were packed. He has a truly amazing and unique collection.

Scheimpflug update and GoogleBooks

Good news today! I just received 4 photos from the Technisches Museum Wien of Scheimpflug cameras and original photographs. One camera is the 8-lens panorama camera and the other is a 3-lens panorama camera. I'm very happy with them!
I still got no reply on my mails about the Sternwartestrasse 39 in Vienna. I mailed to the manager of the office that is located there now and to the Photo Club of Vienna. But I don't give up so soon.
This weekend I am going to start writing the article. I have gathered enough information to begin and I can always fit in new bits of info.

In the wood&brass group there was a message about making indexes of photo history books. An enthusiastic collector had produced a printed index of "An age of cameras" by Holmes and shared it with the group. That is very nice, but there is a simpler alternative: try http://books.google.com/ There you can search for books, but also full text inside books. The Holmes book is scanned by Google and you can search on every word in it. If you put words between parenthesis, like "george eastman", you only get the hits with exactly the text "George Eastman" and not all the passages with "Eastman camera" or "Eastman company". See the screenshot below.


There is more to GoogleBooks. You can log in (become a member first, it is free) and make your own digital library. I have done so with the printed books I have. See My Library (top right in my blogpage). You cannot read all the books full text, but you can search in them. When I want to find something in my own books I search in GoogleBooks, find the page were the subject is mentioned and then go to my physical book to read the passage.