Argus Colorcamera (1941-1942)

The Argus Colorcamera was made by Argus, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, from 1941 until Argus shifted to war production in 1942. It was one of the first 35mm cameras to have a built-in light meter, the Zeiss Ikon Contaflex of 1935 being the very first. The production run of the Colorcamera combined with the similar A3 may have totaled about 40,000 units. The Colorcamera has a cast metal body and an f/4-16 50mm uncoated Argus Anastigmat lens in a self-setting shutter that runs from 1/25 to 1/150 second plus bulb and time. The camera has the detachable selenium cell light meter on top. Argus claimed that the light meter had a sensitivity of 1.4 to 2,050 foot-candles. Because the camera was made before the ASA film speed standard was adopted, the dial exposure calculator on the back of the camera uses Weston film ratings. Weston made the first photoelectric light meters for photography, and worked out film exposure ratings to use with their meters. A film with a Weston rating of 80 would have an ASA (or ISO) speed of 100. You set the dial for the Weston rating of the film and the light meter reading of the scene, and then read the corresponding aperture and shutter settings from the dial. The die cast film take-up spool is not permanently attached and if you turn the camera right side up with the back open the spool could fall out. It is possible to remove the take-up spool and use a reloadable film cassette in its place. The instruction booklet that came with the camera has detailed instructions for this. The idea was that you could cut the film part way through a roll and develop and print the first pictures without wasting all of the rest of the roll. This meant you could get the first pictures on a roll of 36 exposures without having to wait until you shot the whole roll of film. The was valuable when a roll of film cost one 1941 dollar or about seventeen 2018 dollars, with dollars much harder to get in 1941, and every shot had to count. The light meter on this example still works, which is pretty amazing for a 76 or 77 year old selenium cell meter.

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Film Chamber