VN technical camera
VN technical camera

細節
VN technical camera
Van Neck, London; 5 x 4 inches, red-leather covered metal body, alloy and chromed-metal fittings, black-crackle metal interior, red bellows, with a Schneider Xenar f/4.7 135mm. lens no. 7120256 in a Synchro-Compur shutter, spare focusing screen and single metal slides, in maker's fitted case
出版
Leslie Burch, 'Press Photography' in British Journal of Photography, 24 November 1944, p. 416.
Jim Barron, 'The British Press Camera' in British Journal of Photography, 20 February 1992, pp. 20.
Channing and Dunn (1995), British Camera Makers, p.99.
'Flashbulb', 'Press Photography Notes' in British Journal of Photography, 27 May 1955, p. 256.

拍品專文

The mid-1940s and immediate postwar period was one where camera manufacturers began to turn their attention to designs for civilian production when the war ended. Frank van Neck designed a solid-body press camera which never seems to have entered production, although a prototype was shown to the BJP in late 1944.

Barron suggests that the VN technical/baseboard cameras were part of a batch of prototype cameras produced between 1944-1950, however Channing and Dunn state that 'at the end of WWII, Peeling & Van Neck had a further model of press camera at the development stage; this time based on a drop-baseboard design, and with a built-in rangefinder and interchangeable lenses. This was in production from c1946 to around 1958 (9 x 12cm size), and incorporated both a FP shutter and a leaf shutter to the lens. They also produced a prototype model with only the front shutter but this never reached the production stage'. Barron describes both models and suggests that production never exceeded double figures. He reports that one of the first models went to Arthur Jones, the well known resident photographer at Wembley Stadium.
The two shutter model sold for £133 9s with a Ross 5½ inch lens.

The BJP in 1955 described what appears to be the cameras in lots 22-25 which it noted as 'baseboard Press camera' and that tooling up had yet to be completed for production to commence.