At the end of this page you can view the video about this camera.

What a treat this camera is. It is an exceptionally rare and real piece of early cinema history. The camera is right on one hundred years old and still functions. You can shoot with this camera today. Normally with antique movie cameras the film loading process is very time consuming and cumbersome. One of this camera’s best features is that sometime in the past it was adapted to take modern film cores. This means that all you have to do is load it with film and shoot. I scratch tested the camera and with just a little cleaning the camera passes film scratch free, just like it did when it was new, around 1912 or so.

 

 

 

Alfred Darling built this camera. The Darling Logo is printed on the footage counter. Darling was the Panavision, the Arriflex, and Red camera maker for the Genesis period.

 

 

 

 

The patent on the Williamson movement was first applied for October 15, 1908 and published January 21, 1909 It was an improvement on the Alfred Darling patent of 1897.

 

 

The lens is a Cooke Cinematograph 2 inch or 50mm F3.5. The lens is clear and has no fungus or scratches or lens separation. It focuses smoothly from three feet to infinity. The iris is smooth through out its entire range from F3.5 to F22.

 

The picture of the back of this silver dollar was taken with a digital camera through the Cooke Cinematograph lens.

 

This is a 337 page hard bound book bio on James Williamson written by Martin Sopocy. It comes with the camera.