View-Master Personal Stereo Camera (1952-1955)

You might remember looking through a View-Master viewer at a reel of scenic views or cartoon favorites on a reel of color stereo slides. You might not remember that you could have made your own View-Master reels with this View-Master Personal Stereo Camera. Sawyer's, Inc., Portland, Oregon, began producing View-Master reels and viewers in the 1930s. During the 1950s stereo photography boom, Sawyer's sold a home photography View-Master system consisting of a camera and a film cutter. The photographer would shoot a roll of 35 mm slide film, have it developed, and either send the film to Sawyer's to be mounted in View-Master reels or cut and mount the film at home using a View-Master film cutter and empty View-Master reels. The cameras were made for Sawyer's by Stereocraft Engineering Company, also in Portland, Oregon. Patents on the camera were filed by Gordon N. Smith and assigned to Stereocraft. Stereocraft Engineering Company made other products for Sawyer's and eventually merged with Sawyer's. Sawyer's merged with GAF in 1966. GAF got out of the photography business in 1977. View-Master viewers and commercial reels are still sold as toys.

The body of the camera is die cast metal with a small amount of chrome. The top of the camera has the winding knob, film length indicator, exposure counter, exposure calculator/aperture setting/shutter speed setting knobs, a flash connector and a film advance indicator. The bottom has the film loaded indicator, the tripod socket and a summary of the instructions for loading film. The front of the camera has the front lens of the viewfinder, two windows for the paired lenses, the A/B shift knob, the cable release socket and the shutter button. The back of the camera has the rear lens of the viewfinder. A spirit level is visible through the viewfinder. The film door is hinged on the left and has a latch on the right. The camera weighs 1 lb. 7-1/2 oz. (0.67 kg) without film. It is 6 in. wide by 3-3/4 in. high by 2 in. deep (15 cm x 95 cm x 5 cm). The camera came in either black or, uncommonly, brown.

The lenses are matched, fixed focus, View-Master f/3.5-f/16, 25 mm, coated anastigmats with three elements in three groups. The range of sharp focus depends on the selected aperture. Close focus is as close as 4 ft. with the camera set to f/16, and 10 ft. with the camera set to f/3.5. The best stereo effect is with the aperture set to f/11 or f/16 for the greatest possible depth of field. Subjects should be no closer than 6 or 7 ft. The lenses are spaced 2-7/16 in. (62 mm) on centers, which is about the average interpupillary distance for a natural stereo effect. The lenses are located behind plane glass windows that protect the shutter blades. The window mountings hold Series V drop-in filters. The camera came with retaining rings threaded into the window mountings. Wratten 85 color correction filters were commonly used with tungsten balanced Kodachrome A film outdoors in daylight.

The shutters are guillotine types located in front of the lenses. They function like the shutter on the Minox camera. Continuously variable shutter speeds run from 1/100 second to 1/10 second plus bulb.

The aperture and shutter speed knobs are coupled to an exposure setting calculator. You set the film speed (from ASA 5 to 100) to the season (Summer or Winter) and match the weather conditions to the brightness of the subject by selecting the aperture and shutter speeds. It is a very workable system. Stereocraft put the same calculator on the TDC Stereo Vivid camera they made for Bell and Howell.

The film advance and rewind are unique to this camera. Using a 36-exposure roll of 35mm color slide film, the camera makes 69 pairs of 12 mm x 14 mm pictures. Four pictures fit in the area taken up by one full frame 35 mm picture. 34 pairs of pictures are made on the lower half of the film as it moves forward from the film cassette to the take-up spindle. A knob on the front of the camera shifts the lenses from lower to upper, and the film transport from forward to reverse. 35 pairs of pictures are made on the upper half of the film as it moves back from the spindle into the cassette. The wind knob turns counterclockwise for advance and clockwise for reverse.

The shifting lenses on the View-Master Personal Stereo Camera

The shutter is open on the bulb setting to show the lenses.

When the camera was new photographers would send their Kodachrome film to Eastman Kodak for processing and have the processed film returned uncut. They then had the option of sending the film to Sawyer's or one of their dealers to be mounted on View-Master reels or cutting and mounting the slides themselves. Sawyer's sold a film cutter and blank, View-Master personal reels. The film cutter is a necessity for do-it-yourself mounting because it is difficult to cut the slides by hand to fit a reel. Blank View-Master reels are no longer made, but old stock still appears on eBay. It might be possible to cut your own reels on a paper craft cutter like the Cricut machine. Commercial View-Master reels from a thrift store could be reused by taking out the old slides. Some commercial reels are in demand as collectibles, making it a good idea to check prices before sacrificing one of your potentially valuable commercial reels.

The model FC-1 film cutter uses a 15 watt light bulb to illuminate the slides. The knob on the front advances the film through the cutter. Pressing the handle punches out the chips for one stereo pair. To keep from mixing up the chips from different stereo pairs you should mount the slides as you go along. To punch out the pairs of chips you feed the film from right to left with the emulsion side down. Once you finish one row of pictures you turn the film over and cut the second row, feeding the film from left to right with the emulsion side up. The View-Master camera has a square notch on the right film gate and a rounded notch on the left film gate so you can tell left from right, and the notches match the guides printed on blank View-Master personal reels.  If you are intending to make your own View-Master reels it is a good idea to find the somewhat uncommon film cutter first.

The chips can be slipped into a View-Master reel holding 7 stereo pairs. The personal reels have spaces to write descriptions of slides if you write small. A 36 exposure roll of color slide film makes enough pictures to nearly fill 10 View-Master reels.The same View-Master hand viewers for commercial reels work with personal reels. Sawyer's made a 3D slide projector for viewing reels in 3D with special Polaroid glasses. You also needed a special aluminized screen that reflected polarized light. Sawyer's also made 2D projectors that projected only one slide of a pair.

There is a matching flasholder that is unique in having a built-in range finder. You looked through the eyepiece at the top of the flasholder and turned the inner part of the dial to merge the double images into one. This measured the distance to the main subject. You then set the outer part of the dial to the guide number for the flashbulb and film you are using. You read off the aperture to use according to the tonal value of the main subject.

There also were close-up attachments, which I don't have, that focused at 36 inches or 24 inches.