VIEW-MASTER Stereo Cameras

William Gruber, an organ maker and keen photographer, who lived in Portland, Oregon, USA, devised the familiar round View-Master reel of seven stereo images. The product came into being as a result of two happenings – the introduction of Kodachrome film and a chance meeting between Gruber and the president of Sawyer’s Inc. Harold Graves. Sawyer’s factory in Portland was printing picture postcards at the time and Graves recognised that these little stereo reels could be a useful addition to the souvenir scenic postcard market. The View-Master reels of scenic views were first shown at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. Their market was firstly scenic attraction gift shops. They became so popular that they then expanded sales into other retail outlets and production of the reels soon took over the postcard business at Sawyer’s.

The first camera

In 1952 Sawyer’s marketed the View-Master Personal stereo camera, manufactured in the USA by the Stereocraft Engineering Company who were also located in Portland. It was part of a kit to enable amateurs to produce their own View-Master reels, a decision probably helped by the growing user market for 35mm Kodachrome film. The other items in the kit were a film cutter, a film inserter and blank reels. The whole kit is a well thought-out system and the solid die-cast metal camera has many clever design features. The quite detailed instruction book, while it has several typos, very clearly explains the operation of the camera with excellent diagrams; three of them are reproduced here. The camera was offered in a choice of two colors, either black enamel or a smart brown & beige finish.

It has a pair of View-Master Anastigmat 25mm f3.5 fixed-focus lenses located behind the front shutters. There are adjustable speeds from 1/10 to 1/100 plus B. There is a cable release socket next to the shutter button. The lenses each have a screw-out, Series V, retaining ring to hold accessory close-up lenses and filters. As the stereo frame size is only 12.9 x 11.9 mm you can fit a lot of pictures on a 36-exposure film: 69 stereo pairs in fact. With a 20-exposure film you can take 37 pairs. This is accomplished by winding the film through twice, in this sequence: first you set the shift knob on the front to position ‘A’. With the film counter set to 36X and the film length indicator set on the mark, you turn the wind knob counter-clockwise and advance the film with three winds and shutter clicks ready for the first exposure. A small red dot in the base shows that a film is loaded and a small red cross indicator on the top rotates to confirm that the film is moving. Each wind advances the film by eight perforations. You can make 35 pictures before coming to the end of the film, when the counter will be on number 1. All 35 frames have been exposed in a row along the bottom half of the film's width.

The sequence is shown here: After taking a picture at 1 the winding knob locks and you have to move the front shift knob to position ‘B’. This raises the lenses so they will now expose frames along the top half of the film.

The pair of film gates have also risen into position. The winding knob has now become, in effect, a rewind knob and it turns clockwise. You then take another 34 stereo pairs and the counter will have returned to the length indicator mark. Turn the winding knob and click the shutter four times and your film is wound back into the cassette. A summary of the sequence is helpfully printed on the bottom of the camera.

The pressure plate on the back has been cleverly designed with separate sprung sections for each frame position together with rails for holding the film against the sprockets:

Although the camera has built-in double-exposure prevention, it is possible to override it. This can be done in the following seven steps with the shift knob between the two lenses of the camera set in position ‘A’.

1. Make the first exposure

2. Wind film (advances the film and cocks the shutter)

3. Cover both lenses and release the shutter

4. Turn the shift knob from position ‘A’ to position ‘B’

5. Wind film (rewinds the film and cocks the shutter)

6. Turn the shift knob from position ‘B’ to position ‘A’

7. Make the second exposure (the double exposure)

Now let's look at the top of the camera. Is that a built-in exposure meter? Well, sort of. In fact it’s a clever, easy to use, coupled exposure calculator–the ‘Expo Sure Easy-Indicator’. As you will be using only reversal color film (Kodachrome) proper exposure is important. So, after matching your film ASA against ‘summer’ or ‘winter’ and setting your shutter speed, you rotate the lens opening (aperture) dial. This moves the top dial to match the appropriate three subject colors (dark, average, or light) to the four lighting conditions (bright sun, hazy sun, cloudy bright or cloudy dull) that you are working with. Almost an early form of auto exposure perhaps? Also, on the aperture scale there are numbers to show ‘Sharp focus between this distance and infinity’ an easy to understand depth-of-field scale. The two holes nearest the dial are for flash synch and mounting the View-Master Flash attachment. This bulb flash accessory incorporates a rangefinder, which, when aligned, displays the aperture to use; another helpful feature. The rather small optical viewfinder shows a tiny little bubble level to assist in keeping the horizon level.

As the film images are so small they are nearly impossible to cut correctly using a blade or scissors and the reel pockets are a snug fit. The well-designed View-Master film cutter made the job quite easy. As there is a blank space between stereo pairs the cutter punches out some of that with each image. In this way the film ‘chips’ (as View-Master called them) can be handled safely without scratching the image area. One edge of each film gate in the camera has a small cut-out that leaves different shapes on each of the pair of images. You match the shapes with the ones printed on the reel as you insert the pictures. This gives you the correct left/right orientation for stereo viewing.

Concurrently available with the Personal camera was the View-Master Viewer Model C a Bakelite viewer that was made from 1946 to 1955. The previous two viewers were round in shape and opened up like a clamshell to take the reel. The plastic used was prone to distortion and most Model A viewers seen these days have some warping. The sturdier Model C was the first design to allow a reel to be inserted from the top and was so well made that most of them still work efficiently today.

Although the camera was priced at US$149 in 1952 and therefore quite expensive (a Retinette cost $59.50 that year and the later Kodak Stereo $84.50) the cost per picture was very cheap. Sawyer’s printed on some of their scenic reel sleeves: ‘Take pictures like this for less cost than snapshots’. They sold many more cameras than cutters (at $19.50), because a lot of buyers preferred to have their dealer or Sawyer’s do the reel mounting. Production of the Personal Camera ended in late 1955. By that time the Kodak Stereo, Realist Stereo and Stereo Colorist were on sale. They all produced a larger stereo image with the added advantage of the films being returned from Kodak’s processing labs already mounted in stereo pairs.

The second camera

Sawyer’s had been looking to expand their View-Master system sales into Europe, so they had a prototype camera made in 1954 by Apparate & Kamerabau GmbH in Friedrichshafen, Germany. This camera used a unique diagonal film path. It had a coupled-rangefinder and a pair of Schneider Radionar 22mm f3.5 lenses but it never went into production. A coupled-rangefinder would have been a quite unnecessary feature, as would focusing at all, because a fixed-focus 22mm lens would give a sharp image from about 7ft to infinity.

A second prototype was designed by Sawyer’s and Stereocraft but production did not proceed since AkA went bankrupt in 1960. Manufacture was subsequently moved to Regula-Werk King KG in Bad Liebenzell.

Eventually the only other View-Master stereo camera, the Stereo Color Camera was introduced in Europe and USA in 1962. It looked quite different from the first camera and was less complex in design and operation. It also had a larger viewfinder, with bright frame-lines. Stamped into the baseplate is Made in Germany for SAWYER'S, EUROPE S.A. BELGIUM. Some minor differences were made during production in the style of name engraving, the shutter release and the model name ‘Mark II’. A pair of Rodenstock Trinar 20mm f2.8 lenses were again fixed-focus and this time the shutter had only three speeds: 1/30, 1/45 and 1/60, with B being set by a lever on the front below the left lens. There was a cable release socket on the top next to the winding trigger. Also on the top were X and M flash sync sockets and an accessory shoe.

The simplified exposure calculator that is positioned in the front panel between the lenses again determines exposure. It is viewed and set when looking down from the top of the the camera. Film speed can be selected in either ASA or DIN. Once more a choice of four weather conditions and three subject brightness symbols are used for setting exposure. You rotate a wheel, which changes the weather symbols that move behind the three windows in the coloured blocks on the front representing subject brightness. Aperture and speed are not set separately but are selected by the exposure value dial giving these combinations:

A small window on the front panel is marked with a blue flash symbol. It has distance scales in black for metres, green for feet. Here you set your camera-to-subject distance to give the correct exposure when using blue PF1 or similar flashbulbs. If you are too far away a red signal appears in a small window to the left of the blue symbol. Film is advanced by a pushdown ‘trigger wind’ which remains down when wound and pops up when the shutter lever is pressed and released. Holding the winding trigger down and firing the shutter as many times as needed before releasing it allows multiple exposures. A rewind button and a rewind knob with a fold-out crank are located on the top plate.

Because of the clever diagonal film path that made the View-Master size images the film needed to be wound through only once. This simpler and more efficient arrangement also yielded more exposures; you could now take 75 stereo pairs on a 36-exposure film or 40 stereo pairs on a 20-exposure film. Because the exposed images are positioned differently on the film from those of the Personal Camera a new film cutter was designed.

Sawyer’s was acquired by GAF in 1966 and View-Master blank reels continued to be made up to the early 1990s until a part of the machine that made them wore out and the then owners, Fisher-Price, decided not to repair it.