BLACK COOKING SHOWS

Here are nice examples of probably the two most compact 6.5 X 9 cm format plate cameras ever made. Both are German and date back to the early 1930s. I apologise for not including my usual comparative yardstick of the ubiquitous Kodachrome 35mm yellow carton in the centre of the pic, to give an idea of just how compact both are. Trust me - they're both amazingly slim and small! How small? Well, they both measure a miserly 12.5 X 9 X 3.5 cms, with perhaps the last measurement being the most important - such a narrow width ensured an easy fit just about anywhere.

On the left is a Bentzin Plan-Primar Deluxe, with f4.5 12 cm Zeiss Tessar and rim-Compur shutter with B, T 1 - 1/250 sec speeds plus s/timer. This 'Deluxe' version has double-extension bellows, a spirit level, rise-and-fall plus three separate VF systems - a ground-glass reflex screen, an optical 'lantern' and a 2-piece non-optical 'sports' VF. It was made by the Curt Bentzin Werkstatten in Gorlitz, a city perhaps better known in photographic circles for Meyer-Optik lenses.

On the right is a KW 'Patent Etui', with F4.5 10.5 cm Schneider Radionar and Gauthier Pronto shutter, with B, T 1/25, 1/50 and 1/100 sec speeds. It's the base, cooking model so it has only single bellows and no rise-and-fall or spirit level. However, it does have the same three VF choices as the Plan-Primar. 'KW' is the abbreviated name for 'Kamera-Werkstatten Guthe Und Thorsch' of Dresden, a company which later became better known for its Praktica SLRs.

When folded up, both cameras are so amazingly slim and compact, they look more like elegant antique cigarette cases than cameras. The Plan-Primar is considerably heavier at 625 gms compared to the Patent Etui's 460 gms, some of which can be explained by those additional bells and whistles. However, its body is more solidly constructed, perhaps unnecessarily so in view of one of the major sellng points of these cameras being portability. So it's not suprising that a 1935 advert by Thorsch and Co of the Strand, London, the British KW importers, mentions that: 'The Patent Etui was used on a recent Everest Expedition - wherever every little extra weight will tell, the 'Patent Etui' is indispensable'.

In this simple format, the P-E cost GBP6 -6-0d (or six guineas) in the UK; and in the USA where it was marketed as the 'Kawee', it cost $24. The P-P does not appear to have been exported to the UK, although other Bentzin models certainly were. The only advert I've been able to find for it is a German one, indicating it sold for RM 153 in deluxe guise like mine, on its introduction in 1930. With all the yo-yoing of the Reichsmark around that time, it's hard to compare that with the British and US prices for the Patent Etui. So if anybody has any comparative German prices in RM for the P-E, I'd like to hear about them. I suspect that the Bentzin camera would have been more expensive, judging by those UK prices of their other models.. Bentzin stuff was not cheap!

The KW Patent Etui first appeared around 1921, beating the Bentzin P-P by almost 10 years. Viewing the two cameras side-on, the most apparent difference is the parallel triangulated side struts on the KW P-E, a clever engineering feature which KW got patented up to its eye-balls because it ensured the lens and shutter assembly stayed absolutely rigid. As folding cameras begin to show their age, a sloppy lens/shutter assy is usually the result, especially on non self-erecting 'tramtrackers'; however, even well-worn Patent Etuis are still nice and rigid, thanks to that piece of practical geometry. So Bentzin had to use a different system on the P-P, with dinky little hinged flaps.

Post-WW2, Dr Land seems to have preferred the KW route for his first Polaroid folding cameras, when presumably the original KW patents had expired or been declared invalid.

You can clearly see the marked measurements on the side of the wrapper, as well as the way the sticks fit neatly into the box. The wrapper on this one is either printed or folded wrong, normally the measurements are much more parallel to the edges, but I didn't feel like searching the box for the most perfect stick of butter to photograph.

Quite possibly the wierdest thing I have yet uploaded to flickr, here is some butter for the UK folks who apparently are confounded by the sales of it in sticks. You should catch on, it's really much easier to measure than stuff in tubs!