Traduction de Manuel M

Less than 14 x 6 x 6.5 cm! They are the sizes of the Stereo Block-Notes, with a mahazine of 12 plates, folded bellows. And only 4 cm thickness if one is satisfied with simple frames, 3 cm more once unfolded in functioning order. When it is known that this camera, manufactured very well, started to be produced in 1904, one can only be admiring.

As for the weight, it is more or less 750 G. By comparison a contemporary Verascope weighs 900 G, and measures 14.5 x 6 x 10 cm. Besides being compact, the Stereo Block-Notes cost only 168 Francs in 1906!

Then why to deprive itself so a long time of a so beautiful camera ? (I should have been a seller at Gaumont…)

The use is simpler:

•    Once the magazine loaded, one makes slide the front face on the right-sided, which causes to put in function the viewfinder, to give off the lenses and to cock the shutter.
•    The time of shuttering is regulated by means of a serrated roller, on the left of fronting, graduated 1 (P), 2,4,8,16 (G).
•    On the model B (this one), a cursor with the top of fronting makes it possible to choose between two apertures: F 6.3 or F… I do not know because on my specimen the cursor remains obstinately blocked and masks the writings…
•    Another cursor rocks between I (Instantaneous) and P (Pose).

It any more but does not remain to centre and… to release.

Drat! One forgot to unfold the bellows! But fortunately also to get out the part of hiding of the magazine… The plate is saved, but it is necessary to make start again the pose to the subject!

The lens mounted here are Tessar Zeiss 1:6,3 F 55 Bté E. Krauss Paris, n° 99454 and 99464, but the shutter should be kept poses some to read the inscriptions, because this one also acted as part of hiding. That makes it possible to date the camera approximately to 1910. The Stereo Block-Notes was always sold in 1923.

The body bears number 9544, with a magazine n° 4775, but it is not at all certain that one and the other was paired as that was done in the company Jules Richard.

The magazine of 12 plates is equipped with an automatic exposure counter (my…), advancing of a number each time one gets out the slide to bring a new plate ahead.

Curiously, no nut of foot is envisaged, in any case on this specimen. Perhaps to still reinforce the idea of a fast camera, ready with all to photograph with the flight, without taking time to be posed?