Ray Camera Company, Rochester, NY
Ray "B" Camera, 1898
| The Ray "B" camera appears
to be a basic, leather covered plate camera, similar to many others from
the late 1890s. It has fixed focus, and holds up to twelve,
quarter-plate (3¼ by 4¼ inches) holders, accessible through a top rear
door. The shutter has both Time and Instantaneous settings, and three
apertures can be selected by rotating the brass dial in front of the
lens. The brass knob below the lens opening was used to cock the shutter
before exposure.
No immediately obvious, however, is an ingenious feature for making two different exposures on the same plate. In the images below and right, notice the brass lever and scale adjacent to the shutter release.
By setting the lever to 'R' or 'L', the photographer could mask the right or left half of the negative with the brass arm shown in the three similar pictures further below. When set to 'O' the lens was completely open and the entire plate was exposed at one time. Even the finder (above) was scored and labeled to help the photographer properly compose the scene. The Ray Camera Company got its start as Mutschler, Robertson, & Co. back in 1894. They started making Ray Cameras in 1895, and changed their name to Ray Camera Company in 1898. A year later, they were one of five companies which merged to form the Rochester Optical & Camera Company. In addition to box-style cameras, they also made a fairly good array of folding plate cameras, at their peak in the 1890s. |
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