Box camera

Eventually, box cameras with photographic flash, shutter and aperture adjustment were introduced, allowing indoor photos.

and a Kodak rollfilm box sold for US$1 (about $37.00 in 2023[1] dollars) Although many cameras of the mid nineteenth century were wooden and "boxy" in appearance with a brass fitted lens on the front they should not be confused with the mass-produced box cameras that exploded in popularity after the introduction of the first Kodak.

The "Le Phoebus" camera was typical, it was built of mahogany wood with a brass mounted lens in a rack-and-pinion focuser to adjust the projected image sharply onto a ground glass at the back.

[3] Patent GB189602965 was granted on February 10, 1896 to Thomas Peter Bethell of Crown Works, Boundary Place, Liverpool for a "simple construction of camera to be made of cardboard of metal, or a combination of both".

The Crown Camera had a quarter-plate cardboard-body with two waist level finders, cardboard rubber-band powered shutter, four-position rotary stops marked 1 2 3 4, a single meniscus lens, removable ground glass screen, rear sliding sheath and leather carrying strap.