Thursday, April 5, 2012

Folmer Graflex Corporation

National Geographic, February 1927
Graflex was started by William F. Folmer in 1898, but in 1905 it was acquired by George Eastman.  According to the Wikipedia entry,  Graflex used  a unique shutter mechanism in order to capture high speed photographs.  "The top-to-bottom shutter motion exposed the top of the film first (i.e. the "bottom" of the inverted image), so many photographs of automobile racing taken with Graflex cameras depicted the wheels of the car in an oval shape leaning forward. This feature became a conventional indication of speed, and many cartoonists drew wheels the same way to indicate fast motion."  The Graflex company disappeared in 1973.

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