Shutters

The videos are played at half speed to give you a bit of a chance to see the movement of the shutter. As a consequence the sound is also played at half speed, making it lower than in reality. Videos are not played in a loop, so click on the arrow to play them again.

The trouble with shutters is that they have to be cocked and capped. Cocking is necessary to provide the energy for the movement of the shutter when the photographer wants to take the picture. Capping is done to prevent that light passes the shutter when it is cocked. A simple way of doing this, is by putting a cap on the lens.
To create a large group of amateur photographers it was necessary to make photography as simple as possible. This could be done by eliminating a number of operations that the photographist had to think of. Cocking and capping were two of these.
In the shutters below it is interesting to see how this was done.

Barrel shutter of the original Kodak of 1888, which had the advantage that it did not have to be capped when it was cocked. The barrel rotated always in the same direction and did not have to be pulled back to a starting position. Cocking was done by pulling the cord on top, which tensioned a spring. This spring drove the rotating barrel in which the lens was mounted stationary. The barrel had two openings that passed in front and behind the lens, letting the light pass in about 1/50 of a second.
This barrel shutter had many parts and was expensive to produce. In the redesigned Kodak box of 1889 a sector shutter was used, which was less costly to make. This one you see below.

Shutter of the first stringset Kodaks. It replaced the barrel shutter of the 1888 Kodak box camera. By pulling at a cord (string) the shutter plate and brass capping plate are pulled up. (This is not shown in the video as I don't want to pull the original 115 year old string to pieces.) On the right side a button is pressed to fire the shutter. The elongated opening in the shutter plate passes through the lens and lets the light pass in a fraction of a second.
 

Shutter of the Falcon Kodak. It was also used on the 1895 Bullet and the 1895 Pocket Kodak.
First the shutter is cocked and then it is fired. The shutter is cocked by pressing a knob on top of the camera sideways. You can see how the capping plate caps the opening in the shutter plate to prevent light from passing through. By pressing down the same button on top, the shutter is fired. The capping plate moves with the shutter plate to its original position, but does not cap the opening.
The use of one button for capping and firing was thought to be an advantage, which made photography simpler.

This simple but effective shutter was used on many cheap and easy to use Kodak box cameras from 1895 until 1913. In the video it is shown on the No. 3B Quick Focus Kodak (1905-1911). The shutter consist of af a rotating disc that moves to and fro. In the video it is operated twice to show how the disc rotates in one direction for the first picture and in the other direction for a second picture.
The shutter is driven by a spring at the moment the picture is taken. Notches on the edge of the disc regulate the moment on which the energy of the spring is released and the shutter fires.
Capping is not necessary as the disc does not have to be pulled back to a starting position. The energy for the movement is provided at the moment the picture is taken and not before.

Shutter of the No. 1 Panoram Kodak. I show this one because it is so unusual. The remarkable thing is that the lens swings in an arc of about 120 degrees. Cocking is done by rotating a lever on top. This stores the energy in a spring. On pressing the button the lens rotates in an arc. See the video below for the mechanism inside the camera.
The shutters of the No. 3A and No. 4 operate the same way.
 

On the inside of the No. 1 Panoram Kodak a flat sort of cone is attached to the lens and this cone projects a narrow vertical band of light on the film, which is also in a curved position. This way the film is exposed from one end to the other. There is no shutter that cuts of the light. At the end of the rotation of the lens, the light is just projected in a sort of black chamber.