Front
Back
Top
Bottom
Film Chamber
The camera has a mostly plastic body with some aluminum parts. The top of the camera has the rewind knob, the flash sync ASA bayonet connector, the exposure counter, the shutter speed slide, the aperture lever, a film reminder dial, the shutter button and the film advance knob. The front of the camera has the left and right lenses, the cable release socket, the viewfinder window and a spirit level. The back of the camera has the viewfinder eyepiece. The spirit level is visible in the viewfinder to help with holding the camera level. The camera must be level to get the stereoscopic effect in the finished slide. The right side has the latch of the camera back, which is hinged on the left side. The bottom of the camera has a shutter cocking slide, the tripod socket, and the rewind release.
The lenses are matched, front cell focusing, f/3.5-f/22 35mm Kodak Anaston lenses with three elements in three groups, similar in design to the lens in the Kodak Pony 135. The right lens has a distance scale and a depth of field scale. The left lens has suggested settings for Close ups (4-7 ft.), groups (7-15 ft.) and scenes (15 ft. and beyond). The lenses are interconnected so they focus together and have the same aperture settings. The lenses are threaded for Series V drop-in filters. Useful filters would be skylight (Wratten 1a) and color correction (Wratten 85 or Wratten 80a) filters.
The shutters are two-blade leaf shutters that are cocked by advancing the film. The manual shutter slide on the bottom of the camera can be used to cock the shutters when the camera is unloaded, or for deliberate double exposures, or to retake a picture indoors if the flash bulb failed to fire. The shutters are interconnected to fire together at the same settings. Shutter speeds are 1/200, 1/100, 1/50 and 1/25 second plus bulb. The shutters are synchronized for flash. An ASA bayonet flash connector is provided.
The exposure calculator on the top of the camera is for use with ASA 10 speed Kodachrome film outdoors on sunny, hazy or cloudy bright days. Kodachrome was in many ways ideal for stereo slides because of the vivid colors and fine grain. Probably Fujifilm Velvia would be the closest modern slide film. The shutter speeds and apertures are adequate for modern ISO 50-100 color slide films outdoors. If you use the calculator you just need to remember that modern film is 5 or 10 times faster (2-1/3 or 3-1/3 stops).
The Kodak Stereo Camera uses 35 mm slide film. In the mid-fifties, Kodak sold 35 mm Kodachrome slide film in 20 exposure rolls for regular cameras, which would give 15 stereo pairs, and 36 exposure rolls, which would give 28 stereo pairs. Kodak also sold Kodachrome film in a length that gave 20 slide pairs and included developing and mounting. A currently available roll of slide film for 24 single pictures would give about 18 stereo pairs. The exposure counter has setting marks for 15, 20 or 28 exposures and counts down to zero. The centers of the 15/16 inch wide images in a stereo pair are 2-13/16 inches apart and the film advances 1-7/8 inches on each shot, with the result that stereo pairs are interleaved as follows on a 36-exposure cassette of film:
Start | 1 right | blank | 2 right | 1 left | 3 right | 2 left | 4 right | 3 left | ... | 26 right | 25 left | 27 right | 26 left | 28 right | 27 left | blank | 28 left | end.
As an aid to mounting the images, the film gates are notched to mark which images were left and right in a stereo pair. The right image had two notches while the left image had one.
Kodachrome slide film and Kodak stereo slide mounting services are long gone. E-6 process slide film is still available and slide mounts and slide mounting services are still available from internet sellers. The slide mounts are about 4 inches wide by 1-5/8 inches high and have openings, left and right, that are about 21 mm wide by 23 mm high and are spaced about 62 mm on centers. The spacing between the slides is about the same as the distance between your own two eyes, but slightly less than the distance between the lenses on the camera, which increases the stereo effect. The openings in the slide mounts are slightly smaller than the images on the film to allow a little room for adjustment. The slides fit into a stereo viewer or can be projected and viewed through special glasses. The best stereo effect is with subjects 7 to 20 feet away from the camera. Stereo macro shots would require prisms to create convergence in addition to the closeup lenses. Macro sets did exist for the Stereo Realist camera, but I don't know whether they would work on the Kodak Stereo. Distant subjects are too far away for a natural stereo effect.
The modern era of stereo photography began in 1947 when the David White Company brought out the Stereo Realist camera. The Realist set the standard for the format and was the most popular and longest selling stereo camera. The Kodak Stereo used the same format as the Realist, as did other stereo cameras that were brought out by companies such as Bell and Howell/Three Dimension Company, Graflex and Wollensak/Revere. The View-Master Personal Stereo Camera used the same format as the familiar View-Master reels. Kodak was late to the party with its stereo slide camera. At first it outsold even the Stereo Realist, but sales of all stereo cameras declined when the novelty began to wear off and the camera was discontinued in 1959. The Stereo Realist continued 12 more years, I think basically until they ran out of parts. David White Instruments is still in business.
In the digital age you could scan your film and create stereo images for a computer screen or make stereo cards for an old-fashioned parlor stereo viewer. Stereo slide mounts and viewers are still available.
Slide Viewer and Camera
Stereo Slide
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