No. 4 Folding Kodak, Improved

Format

roll film via Eastman-Walker roll holder, or glass plates

System

Kodak Folding

Shutter

Bausch & Lomb Iris Diaphragm, 1/10 second to three seconds plus T, pneumatic release

Focusing

ground glass, double swing back and sliding front

Metering

none

Spec Notes

THREE DIMENSIONS FROM THE 1890-92 CAMERA, not the four the first brief claimed. Shutter (Barker to Bausch & Lomb iris diaphragm with pneumatic release), lens ('longer focus than formerly ... instantly removable and can be replaced by a wide angle lens') and body ('A Double Swing Back and sliding front are among the other improvements') are all confirmed in Kodak's own words. *** THE AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE COUNTER IS RETRACTED. *** It was credited to the camera; Kodak prints it as a ROLL-HOLDER feature - 'Roll Holders ... fitted with dark slide and automatic counter for exposures' - and the 1892 camera already had a 'counter for exposures'. A SPEC PUBLISHED FOR AN ASSEMBLY IS NOT A SPEC OF ITS PART, and this is that trap running in the other direction. Best-evidenced camera in the slice: Science Museum object 1990-5036/876, serial 8147, gives the shutter speeds as 3, 2 and 1 second plus 1/5, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and T. That 8147 against a documented run of 3450 No. 4 Folding Kodaks shows the serial sequence is NOT a simple per-model count. THE GLASS PLATE MODEL IS A BACK, NOT A CAMERA, AND FOLDS INTO THIS ROW AT ZERO DIMENSIONS. Kodak heads the section 'Glass Plate Kodaks without roll holder for films' - defining the product by what has been TAKEN OUT - and sells the plate capability as a priced accessory under its own heading, 'GLASS PLATE ATTACHMENT', at $4.00 for the Ordinary style and $5.00 for the Daylight. A surviving Ordinary C carries both backs with the body and the roll-film back sharing serial 2029. The 'spring ground glass frame' is a FOCUSING SCREEN, excluded by name from the dimension list. AA-13 lists and prices these separately because AA-13 catalogues PRODUCTS KODAK SOLD, not CAMERAS KODAK BUILT. NO PRICE IS RECORDED ON THIS ROW. AA-13's 'ORIGINAL LIST PRICE' column is not a list price - established in slice 7 and sharpened in slice 8. In this era Kodak's own catalogues give the real figures anyway, and where they matter to a row-shape decision they are quoted in these notes instead of stored as data. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION. AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO'. Where Kodak's own catalogues place a model outside AA-13's span the conflict is recorded on the row rather than resolved. DATING: NONE EXISTS, AND THAT IS A POSITIVE FINDING RATHER THAN A GAP. No serial-to-year mapping was ever published for any Kodak of this era and there is no date code; Kodak's own catalogues print no serial anywhere. AA-13 records only two ceilings - the highest known serial on The Kodak as 5192 and on the No. 1 as 15,559 - and gives no serial note at all for any other model. A serial here establishes only that a camera falls below a known ceiling. What DOES date these cameras is Kodak's own vocabulary and hardware sequence: the body address marking ('Eastman Co. Rochester' runs 1889-1892) and the shutter succession, sector 1890 to Barker 1892 to Bausch & Lomb iris diaphragm 1893.

Fitted Lens

Bausch & Lomb Universal, 7-1/2 in, instantly removable and convertible to a 4-1/2 in wide angle

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

4 x 5 in

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1893