RE: Who invented the Cirkut camera?

[Kurt Mottweiler <krm@xxxxxxxx>]

Richard,
  I always enjoy your presentations at IAPP meetings.
Just a note on the Cirkut camera timeline. There are at least two rotating
cameras which were made to use a wet plate holder and a tambour-like or
sliding panel arrangement to cover the portions of the plate not behind the
slit at any given moment. The Johnson and Harrison Pantascopic camera
(English patent on the 5th of September, 1862) is an example. It uses a
clockwork motor and vane governor. Although it only ran through 110 degrees,
there is no reason to believe that with a shorter lens or longer plate
carrier, it could not do 360 degrees. Mechanically it is fundamentally the
same as a Cirkut camera. The Liesegang Rotations-Apparat of 1882 is similar
in arrangement but uses a hand crank to rotate it.
 And then there's the Eastman-Walker roll paper holder of 1884 for negative
paper and the subsequent Eastman's American Film which was a stripping film.
These and other roll holder inventions of the period would certainly have
provided some inspiration to any aspiring panoramic camera designers of the
period.

Kurt Mottweiler
Mottweiler Design
2 Bonito Court
Santa Fe, NM  87505
505.466.3632
krm@xxxxxxxx

> Thank you for referring to the Panorama article, Jeff. I should
> add however, that the Johnston Patent from 1904 probably does not
> mark the beginning of the Cirkut Age. In the patent, Mr. Johnston
> writes that he has "invented new and useful Improvements to
> Panoramic Cameras".  The use of the word "improvements" indicates
> that something, perhaps many things, preceded the 1904 patent.
>
> If we look back in the photographic timeline, we can mark 1888 as
> the year flexible film was invented by Hannibal Goodwin and
> marketed by Eastman Kodak. Of course, cameras on the order of the
> Cirkut need flexible film, so we are looking at the period of
> between 1888 and 1904 as the period where Cirkut technology was
> born.