Gear Talk > Camera Talk

DMR "Congrès" view camera

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Airy:
Dear friends, I'd like to introduce to you the first camera we had in our family. My great-grandpa (1868-1968, so we had the pleasure to meet on earth) had a bookstore, printshop, and also printed postcards he shot himself. His postcards from the WWI battlefields around Verdun are widespread: he apparently produced 1/3rd of these, and they were sent around for decades, since "war tourism" attracted lots of visitors to Verdun, as still is the case today...

His first postcards date back to 1904. In his very long career, he had several cameras, and it seems that the first one he used is now in my possession.

The DMR (De Maria) "Congrès" was built from 1904 to 1908, so he probably bought an early copy. It traversed two world wars, complete with bag, shutter, plates, and two objectives. One of the objective mounting plates seems to be missing, as well as the tripod. However the bellows are in a good condition, and the cloth shutter too (while certainly needing calibration).

I guess there should be a special frame with ground glass for setting the focus : seems to be missing too. I plan to put the camera back into service with no modifications of course, and using photo paper instead of glass plates, thus getting direct paper negatives that I could scan and invert. That would be my nod to the pioneering Mr. Jean Édouard Martin-Colardelle.

About the two objectives : the longer one (FL around 25cm) is simplest, with an internal thread probably to mount plates pierced with holes of variable diameters (see 5th photo; front doublet removed), and a shorter one (FL around 20cm maybe) with a "modern" diaph, f/8 to f/64, and no clicks. The longer one shows some signs of cement alteration, making the lens edges look like something is broken inside, but should still be usable. The shorter one is pretty clean.

For reference, my ancestor's print shop was destroyed twice: in 1916 (German shells - that was in Verdun!) and again in the 2nd World War (not sure about where the bombs came from - probably those US flying fortresses scattering their stuff from high altitude, and hoping to hit the train station...). He rebuilt it twice, and formally retired around 1953, so one of his younger sons, then already 47, could finally take the business over...

Airy:
Small addition - the Mackenstein objective may well be a Petzval (with two doublets and a central aperture stop) used for portraits.

Ashlandish:
Wonderful you can hold that very tangible personal history, wonderful project--looking forward to the images you create...

Hugh_3170:
Airy, Alan Lesheim in Tasmania is having great success with using printing paper in lieu of glass or film negatives.  He has resurrected a number of older large format cameras.  PM me if you are interested and I can put you in touch with him.

Erik Lund:
Thank you for sharing this historical family story! What a blessing to have the camera and lenses still in the family, good luck with the job of reentering it into service again, sounds like a perfect option to use photo paper!We have a small but very active camera shop here in Copenhagen that restore, use and sell similar old cameras, they are always very helpful, let me know if you need any assistance locally!
Oneofmanycameras.com
I would like to see some of his and your work in the future!

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