Antique & 19th Century Cameras
Antique & 19th Century Cameras
Improved Kinnear Camera, 1860s
Ottewill Collis & Company, London.
The first successful commercial use of bellows in 1851 was a milestone in camera design. It provided a lightweight method of extending body sections. The original bellows pattern was "square," implying that the sides were parallel to each other. Before using a bellows, makers created heavy wood "sliding box" cameras.
In 1857, the Scottish photographer C.G.H. Kinnear invented a camera that influenced the design pattern for all future bellows apparatus. Kinnear's new camera used a tapered bellows, which enabled it to fold into a very compact form because each forward pleat nested into the larger pleat behind it.
The newly designed wood body was also innovative. A lens panel was mounted on the front of a sliding base that could be extended or retracting (for focusing) by an endless screw. A handle at the back of the base was used to focus the camera.
To ensure portability, Kinnear designed the camera so it could be completely disassembled and stored inside the rear standard.
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This particular camera is an 8 x 10" example with an "Ottewill Collis & Co., Manufacturers" maker's label. It is believed that Thomas Ottewill teamed with Collis from 1864 to 1868. Ottewill's Improved Kinnear camera is an early top loading design with a reversible back and a red Kinnear-pattern bellows. Unlike modern cameras, Kinnear bellows do not have chamfered corners and are constructed with a corner seam.
By 1859, English makers such as W.W. Rouch and Thomas Ottewill copied Kinnear's landmark camera and improved on the design. All Kinnear-pattern cameras made in the 1860s and 1870s are top loading wetplate designs and relatively rare. Dry-plate versions were made in the 1890s.
Kinnear’s New Camera
An early and important British maker, Thomas Ottewill first started making cameras in 1851. He is best known for his "Double Folding Camera" (1853) that could be folded once the front and rear standards were removed. Two of the most famous English builders, George Hare and Patrick Meagher, worked for Ottewill before going into business for themselves.
The origin of Kinnear’s portable camera can probably be attributed to overcoming two major limitations. The first impediment to portability was weight. Most cameras of the time were sliding-box designs, two wooden bodies with one sliding inside the other. These sliding boxes were in turn mounted onto rigid bases. This combination, while effective, made for a relatively heavy and bulky apparatus.
The second limitation was inherent to the sliding-box itself; the extension distance between the front and rear sections was only a few inches on average, making it nearly impossible for photographers to use different focal length lenses on the same body. Builders eventually overcame the extension problem by replacing the sliding-box portion of the body with a pleated bellows. The first commercially successful use of a pleated bellows was on the 1851 Lewis daguerreotype. The bellows connected the front stationary body section to the focusing rear section. Although weight decreased a little and the extension range increased, portability remained an issue because the Lewis camera (and others like it) continued to use solid bases.
Undaunted, builders continued to experiment with unpleated and pleated square bellows patterns in attempts to create a folding camera. But it was Kinnear who first achieved success by modifying the bellows into the now familiar conical shape by tapering the sides from back to front. Unlike square bellows with parallel sides, tapered bellows had the benefit of folding into a smaller form because each pleat nested inside the next larger pleat behind it. Kinnear also felt that the conical bellows was the camera body.* “The body of the camera is formed on the gusset principle of the concertina, of two thicknesses of a close but not heavy black cloth, with strips of pasteboard between.”
Over the years, the Kinnear body pattern grew in popularity and was copied by numerous British builders at least through the 1890s. The total number of Kinnear cameras is not completely known, but examples have also been identified from makers such as Bland & Company, Claudet & Houghton, J.H. Dallmeyer, G. Hare, A.J. Melhuish, Newton & Co., Negretti & Zambra, and Spicer. Melhuish, in particular, created an interesting variation by fabricating the entire rear plateholder assembly out of sheet brass instead of wood. The American manufacturer E. & H.T. Anthony also offered an interpretation of the Kinnear body pattern in the 1870s called the Compact View Success Camera.
* C.G.H. Kinnear, Mr. Kinnear’s Portable Camera. Journal of the Photographic Society. (February 22, 1858), 165.
This illustration, from Mr. Kinnear’s Portable Camera published in the Journal of the Photographic Society (February 22, 1858), shows the major features of the apparatus.
Collapsing the camera for storage is relatively straight forward. The front of the bellows is removed from the lensboard and pushed into the rear standard. The rear standard is then unbolted from the base. Supporting rods locking the lensboard are unlocked, which allows the lensboard to be folded flat against the camera base. The entire camera base (including lensboard) is then flipped over and put on top of the rear standard. Small sliding brass latches would lock the base to the rear standard. In a sense, the Kinnear pattern camera could be considered one of the earliest "self-contained" designs.