WWI Cameras?

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

My boss is a professor in the Theatre Department at the university where I work and is involved in a production set during World War 1.

He asked me today what sort of camera they would have been using back then. I suggested one of the big old Kodak folders but he wants to put a flashbulb on it which will be fired off during the show by the actor. The few I was able to check out did not have a flash nipple.

Any suggestions? Without breaking the bank

Thanks!
dan

[connealy]

If he is looking for authenticity, it seems like flash powder or flash paper would be appropriate.  Pretty dangerous stuff to be wielding in a theater, though.

[connealy]

Here are some pages from a 1922 camera manual with instructions for the use of flash paper.



A package of a half dozen Eastman No. 1 Flash Sheets cost 35 cents.  Might be a little hard to find now.  However, it doesn't seem like it would be hard to rig a simulation using a small electronic flash.

[ImageMaker]

The were basically three methods of making flash photos before about 1930+ (flash bulbs as we know them weren't introduced until well after WWI, and were originally fired with synchronizer solenoids, which is why you almost never see a flash connector on a shutter made before the late 1930s) -- flash powder (very, very dangerous stuff, can explode with a big bang, and can go off from friction-induced static), flash paper (not very bright and still prone to making a big bang) and magnesium ribbon.  The safest of the lot would probably be the ribbon (which, BTW, you can still buy from pyrotechnic suppliers); the prop could be set up with a very limited length of ribbon and the shot composed so the ribbon burn needn't be filmed on a full set (i.e. over a concrete floor, with extinguishing equipment on hand).

I wouldn't expect simulation with electronic flash to be very satisfying on film; the flash from powder, paper, or especially ribbon was of considerable duration (powder typically around 1/10 second, with paper and ribbon running much longer), while it would require a synchronized shutter to even be certain of recording electronic flash in a single cine frame.  Any competent lighting tech will probably be able to produce a suitable flash with more or less standard equipment, if it's desirable to record the actual flash on the subject...

It's probably worth researching when flash ribbon was sold, however -- I know flash powder (usually concocted by the photographer) was used from wet plate days into the 1930s, possibly even later by some workers.  The ribbon used to sold in spools, dispensed from a self-cutting can that can be had from time to time on eBay and, like the flash paper, was generally lit with a match.  Flash powder was often fired electrically, especially after about 1920 when dry cell batteries had become common.

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

Thanks for the info He's ususally a stickler for details so this could be a flashless production after all. The flash powder would be pretty cool on stage though ...

Thanks!
dan

[ImageMaker]

BTW, what we think of as "big old Kodak folders" are almost all post-WWI models.  The pre-WWI cameras were usually a wood box that looked like a box when closed, frequently with red leather bellows instead of the black that was common later, and aside from the very simplest were almost never used off tripod (fastest films before WWI would have been about ISO 25 equivalent, almost all were orthochomatic).  Glass plates were also still very common before WWI, though 120 film was available from 1901 and a couple other roll formats even earlier -- 35 mm cine film dates to around 1890, IIRC.

For a stage production, you might be able to use a fast "cold smoke" cartridge in a flash pan, oriented away from the audience (i.e. photographer with his butt to the room, photographing a group who face the seats), and simulate the flash effect with fast-switching floodlights.  I'd be *amazed* if you could get actual flash powder past the safety folks for a stage production, though...

[Mike Kovacs]

I found this online.  French photographer photographing fallen soldier.



I would say something like a Kodak Vest Pocket camera would be a popular carry-along by troops.  They were in fact forbidden from possessing cameras on the front.

[Don Day]

Another good resource:

Canada's Digital Collections: Jack Turner’s War - the story and photographs of one young Canadian soldier who documented World War I by using a camera secretly in the trenches

http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/turner/default.htm

Jack used a 2x3" German-built camera to take his secretive photos on the front line. I did not find an exact name, but that sounds like the Ermanox camera, but his interview does note that he used "film" rather than plates. Anyway, the idea is not to duplicate HIS process, but one LIKE he might have used. I agree that the VPK with the early scissors-type struts would have been an authenticate candidate for soldiers "in theatre."

[rentavet]

thanks for that link!!  I think I found info on my Grandmother's brother with some more digging!!

[Glenn Thoreson]

Flash powder, paper, magnesium ribbon, the first flash bulbs, etc, were used with the "open flash" method. Open shutter, make a lot of smoke, close shutter, run outside for air. It would be a simple affair to make a flash pan that wouldn't be overly dangerous. Common black powder will burn without exploding when unconfined. It will also make lots of smoke for effect. A simple igniter can be made using a flashlight bulb with the glass broken off and a dry cell. A thin ribbon of powder strung on the bottom of a tin V shaped tray on a wooden handle, and a little imagination. Poof!

[Don Day]

You can buy a reliable igniter at a hobby shop--just pick up a model rocket igniter kit, which will have the battery holder with safety key, continuity tester, ignition button, and 20 feet of wire that you can cut off to just a few inches. Use this as the "handle" for the faux flash pan, and install a model rocket igniter loop, wrapped in a bit of flash paper that you can purchase wherever magician supplies are sold. This will power many such "flash exposures" on the one set of batteries.

[ImageMaker]

I found this online.  French photographer photographing fallen soldier.

Wonder why you need a movie camera to photograph a corpse??

[connealy]

Here's another thought.  Since your director has envisioned the scene with something approximating a flashbulb, that would probably not in the early Twentieth Century called for flashpaper, which required about a one second exposure.  An instantaneous exposure might more likely have called for the use of a flash cartridge.  There is a reference to these in the manual pages I posted.  I take it they were ignited by a device like this:

I never saw one up close, but it appears that the disks are caps which would be set off by the snaplock, and that the spark would pass through the nipple into the cartridge which may have been about the size of a shotgun shell.  It seems like about any of the suggestions so far could emulate this process for an audience.
 . . Maybe you will have an opportunity to snap some digitals of the production.

[Glenn Thoreson]

Ha! Mike, that thing looks like some diabolical medical device.

Hmmmm.. come to think of it, many flashbulbs were filled with aluminum wire. I wonder if a fellow could get a thin strand of aluminum foil to ignite?

[ImageMaker]

Aluminum *will* burn in air, but it's hard to get it ignited.  It burns *extremely well* in a pure oxygen atmosphere (like that inside a flashbulb), or in close proximity to a vigorous oxidizer -- so well that it's dangerous in those environments.

One way one might be able to ignite a strip of aluminum without too much hazard is by running a big electric current through it; a little testing would be sensible, but 120 V through a narrow strip of suitable length would probably simulate flash powder more than well enough from behind a pan (including a thinnish puff of smoke -- nothing like as much as you'd get from proper flash powder, but much more than a modern flashbulb would emit; probably subject to enhancement by coating the aluminum with some kind of oil before firing).