Home
Cameras of the 1890s
Cameras of the 1900s
Cameras of the 1910s
Elements in motion
Shutters
Stops
Film winding
Optics
Lenspanel
Original photographs
Identify your Kodak
Picture / bulk ratio
Users & cameras
My articles
Links
My blog
Contact
If it doesn't work

Vertical shift of the lens panel 

   

If  you take a photo of a tall building and tilt the camera backwards to get the top of the building on your photo, it will result in a distortion of the perspective. On the photo the building seems to be falling backwards.

To avoid this you have to keep the back of the camera vertical, but then you miss the top of the building.
On many antique cameras you can move the panel with the lens upward, which results in more 'air' in your photo and less foreground. This way you can photograph a tall building without it falling backwards on your picture.

The camera in this video is a No. 3 Cartridge Kodak from the period 1904-1907. It has a very fine Cooke Anastigmat lens.

 

The video above is what you see on the ground glass in the back of the camera when you pull up the lens panel. To make it more recognizable I have rotated the image 180 degrees. In real the image on the ground glass is up side down.

What you see here is a slide show, showing the effect of the rising front panel in six stages. The first slide shows the image with the lenspanel in normal position. The last slide shows the image with the lenspanel pulled up to its maximum. (In a real video of the ground glass the image would be quite dim, so I preferred a slide show of photos.)

The church you see is located in St. Odiliënberg, a village in the south of the Netherlands.

 The film below explains how all this works. Click the button to start the film.

 

 

 
jerdkamp@hotmail.com
Top