As follow-up to Ken Hough’s well received presentation at the March 2024 PHSNE meeting (watch here), he added the following: “When I was a kid in the early 60s my mom and I had a chance to visit Grand Central Station in NYC. What I remember most was the huge arched ceiling and the Kodak Colorama.

Kodak Coloramas are huge backlit color images of Americana. Google ‘Kodak Colorama’ and you will see what I mean. When I worked for Deardorff I learned that they made the big and heavy cameras that Kodak used to shoot these. They were 8″x 20″ format with some cropping on the ends. Some photographers who did the Coloramas disliked the cameras due to their size and 40 pound weight.

When Deardorff was asked to build a smaller camera, they came up with a 5 x 10” bellows camera with lateral shift on the front standard: less weight, yet very sturdy. It is doubtful if the camera with the Linhof handle was hand-held.”

For more on the Kodak Colorama, check out this article: https://medium.com/@Kodak/larger-than-life-kodaks-iconic-colorama-eecc5ba0193f. There’s also a relevant episode from The Kodakery podcast at the bottom of the page.