Klito

Houghton's Klito No. 1 falling plate magazine camera is made for a set of glass plate holders for a maximum frame size 11×7.5 cm. It has a conventional falling plate mechanism like drafted in the article about magazine cameras. As refinement it has a two part back door. The lower quarter of the back door can be opened separately to remove exposed plates.

split door

On top it has a shifter to release the last exposed plate to fall onto the stack of used plates. The camera name "Klito" is imprinted on the box camera's carrying grip. On one side of the camera is a focusing knob. By turning this knob clockwise it moves the whole front part of the box forward by means of a gear rack. A bellows becomes visible through the slit between magazine and box front part. The gear rack becomes visible too. The distance scale of the gear rack is visible through a framed window on the camera's side. That frame bears the camera's full name "Klito No. 1". When the frame shows the setting "INFINITY" the box is closed, with no more gap between magazine and front part. Then it looks like a big common box camera, with three eye front side.

In the front part are the lens, the shutter, and two quite big and nicely framed brilliant viewfinders, one on a side for horizontal and one on top for vertical image subject spotting. Below the finder ocular on the side is the lever to set the shutter from time to instant mode or vice versa. Below that control is the shutter release lever. In instant mode it opens the shutter when moved down or when moved back up. In time mode it opens the shutter when moved to the actual opposite position (up or down, depending on if its down or up).

The whole camera is constructed of wood, covered with black grain leather or a good leatherette. On the front it bears Houghton's typical little round Ensign bagde with the imprinting "Made by Houghtons Ltd London - British made".

There was also a Folding Klito - between 1900 and 1920 - a bellows camera, made in several sizes for different plate sizes. This did not have the falling mechanism for swapping plates.

Links

• Falling Plate Klito on the Historic Camera Club site
• Folding Klito on the Historic Camera Club site
• Photos of Folding Klito by flickr user Vagamundos