Kodak Panoram
Eder[2] notes that "It was not until the invention of the flexible silver bromide films that [the panoramic camera] achieved the great success which it merits.
The Kodak Panoram camera permits an instantaneous exposure over an extensive field of vision by an analogous turning of the lens and by a slit shutter passing in front of the film."
[11] The swinging mechanism through which the image was transmitted by a rear slit, and with the lens tube not pointing at the film at either end of its travel; were mechanisms that constituted the shutter, which had two settings; "fast" and "slow", the latter being used for most situations except for "views at the seashore, on the water, and for very distant views when the sunlight is unusually bright.
The framing was achieved using a brilliant finder mounted centrally on the top-front edge - some with a cover providing a mirror for eye-level use, supplemented by V-shaped sighting lines across the top of the camera.
In the United Kingdom in 1913 "Universal Providers" William Whitely Ltd., of Queens Rd in London offered the No.1 model at £2 10 0, and the No.4 £3 10 0 (£297.40 in 2020) and described the camera;Takes marvelously realistic pictures of broad stretches of landscape and seascape, open spaces in cities, squares.
[18]Being portable and simple in operation, with the added advantage of storing a number of panoramas on a film roll, the Panoram was quickly taken up by innovative photographers for both recording and artistic purposes.
Charles J. Kleingrothe's turn-of-the-century photographs of Sumatran Dutch East Indies were made with the Panoram, and are considered key visual records of colonial Peninsular Malaya, especially of its tin-mining and rubber industries.
The panoramic camera was used in the 1921 reconnaissance of Mount Everest;[23] also by Pictorialist and postcard publisher Robert Vere Scott; and by adventurers like Melvin Vaniman, and archaeologist Hiram Bingham III.
[24] Bingham, having first seen Machu Picchu in 1911, for his 1912 expedition wrote to George Eastman, who was to supply his photographic equipment; ...it would be extremely advisable to have one Panoram Kodak in the outfit ... Can you give me some advice on this?
