When were monorail cameras introduced?

[Bill_1856]

Was the Graphic View I the first commercial monorail?

[Joseph Dickerson]

Hi Bill,

I was told by the fellow who designed the Graphic View (I&II) that it (model I) was the first all metal mono rail.

There may have been others that utlized wood and metal in combination but I'm not sure about that.

JD

[Frank Petronio]

Didn't lensmakers use "optical benches", for experimenting with elements, that were essentially monorail cameras mounted to a table-top?

[Mark Sampson]

A good question. I have a Sinar manual that shows a Steigmann(?) wooden monorail camera. It appears to pre-date WW2. The same picture shows a Graphic View and several Sinars, supposedly explaining the evolution of the view camera. Personally, I think the optical bench preceded the monorail camera- whoever made the first monorail adopted the principle. I do know that the Kodak Master View/Calumet CC400 monorail design dates from 1946- but that was after the Graphic View. My not-perfect memory thinks the Sinar camera dates from 1948.

[Bill_1856]

Interesting, Joe. He certainly got the design right -- the Oskar Barnack of large format. Even today, the GV is nearly as usable as the latest affordable view cameras. Essentially the only thing it lacks is an interchangable bellows, which wasn't important in the days when the widest lenses were 90mm. Also, Graflex, Inc dropped the ball by taking so long to make available the Graflock back. My, what a bargain it was!

[Leonard Evens]

Stroebel has a picture in View Camera Technique of a monorail from 1870.

[Ernest Purdum]

The German camera was made by Stegemann of Berlin. I have seen widely differing dates for its introduction, but it was long before the Graphic View. It was beautifully made, but all out of wood, even the rail.



The "optical bench" was almost surely the inspiration for the monorail camera and particularly the Graphic View which has a rail shaped like that of the classic optical bench as does the Stegemann. Optical benches don't ordinarily have bellows, though,



The 1870 design was more of a laboratory testing instrument than a camera, but it certainly could have been an inspiration for later designers.