Bell Panorama and Panel Camera

My Bell Panoraams & Panel camera

I didn’t start out chasing rare panoramic cameras like the Bell Panorama; my first love was colorful and unusual box cameras. As a new collector—newly married, young son at home, and a very limited budget—I hunted for Kodak Rainbow cameras, Univex AF models with painted faces, and bright Agfa and Falson colored folding cameras whenever I could afford to add another piece to the shelf.

 Somewhere in those early years, about 45 years ago, I spotted my first Bell Panoramic camera in a local antique shop. Sitting in a locked glass case, it looked like a strangely long box‑style camera, and I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. I asked the clerk to pull it out, turned it over in my hands, and saw a price tag of about 80 dollars—far more than I was paying for box cameras at the time—so I reluctantly handed it back and walked away, wondering why on earth this plain, elongated camera was priced like that.

 A few years later, flipping through one of the many camera guides in my collection, I stopped cold on a photo of an extremely long box‑style camera: a Bell Panorama. Instantly my mind jumped back to that antique‑store shelf, and the mystery price tag suddenly made sense. Now my interest in panoramic cameras was growing, fueled by swing‑lens classics like the Kodak Panoram, Al‑Vista, and Russian Horizont, but the big boys—Fujifilm 6×12 and 6×17 systems or the Horseman 6×17—were still well out of my price range, so the Bell stayed in the realm of daydreams.

A Bell Panorama & Panel camera compared to a Kodak No. 3 Brownie

 Fast‑forward about 40 years. While browsing online listings for vintage panoramic cameras, I stumbled onto a modified Bell Panorama and Panel Camera that had been converted to shoot 120 film instead of its original 118/122 roll film. The seller mentioned the shutter was working but pointed out some odd “home‑brew” details. The price was finally in my comfort zone, so I messaged them, made the deal, and waited (not very patiently) for my first Bell panoramic camera to land on my doorstep.

 Unlike swing‑lens panoramic cameras, the Bell Panorama uses a fixed wide‑angle lens and a huge image circle, more like a compact, wooden ancestor of a Horseman or Fujifilm 6×17. When the package arrived and I unboxed it, I was greeted by a lot of black masking tape on the body, a mysterious metal bar on top, and bellows that actually looked pretty healthy. The shutter sounded sluggish with the lens mounted, but once I unthreaded the retaining ring and tested the lens and Betax shutter off the camera, the speeds snapped back to life—turns out the ring was pinching the shutter housing just enough to slow everything down.

 On the back I noticed strips of white tape covered in handwritten numbers. Some clearly related to shutter accuracy tests, while others looked suspiciously like film‑advance notes—my best guess was someone had already mapped out how many turns of the advance knob you need between panoramic frames when shooting 120 film in this old #122 panoramic body.​

How my Bell Panorama & Panel camera arrived to me.

 Opening the back confirmed that a previous owner had done a thoughtful 120‑film conversion. One chamber already had a custom adapter so a 120 spool would sit where the original 118/122 spool once lived, but to actually shoot the camera I still needed a second adapter for the take‑up side. Thankfully, I’d already bought a pair of 120 adapters for my Kodak Quick Focus camera, and I was pretty sure they could be coaxed into service in the Bell Panorama as well.​

 If you’d like to dive deeper into the different Bell Panorama and Panel Camera models, I highly recommend David Silver’s excellent article, which goes into far more historical detail than I can fit here.​

History: 

 The Bell panoramic cameras were a short‑lived but important American attempt to make wide images simple and affordable for ordinary photographers in the early 20th century.

 In 1908, Iowa inventor Isaac A. Bell patented what he called Bell's Straight Working Panoramic Camera, produced by the Bell Camera Company in Grinnell, Iowa. At a time when most panoramic cameras used rotating or "swing" lenses and curved film planes, Bell's design stood out for its fixed wide‑angle lens and straight focal plane, eliminating the need for complex clockwork drives and curved backs. He built his camera around then‑standard #122 roll film, offering a generous 3¼ × 11 inch frame while still allowing normal postcard‑size exposures on the same roll, which made the camera attractive to amateurs who didn't want a dedicated specialty system.

Bell’s distinctive label on the original 1908 Bell Panorama camera.

 The first Bell Panorama combined a folding bellows body, a brass Gundlach shutter, and a wide‑angle lens that could cover the long negative at small apertures, trading speed for even coverage across the frame. While industrial reviewers praised the camera's practical engineering, it received little advertising and sold poorly, so surviving examples are rare and collectible today. Bell remained committed to the concept, refining the design and securing a second U.S. patent in 1911.

 In 1912, he introduced the revised Bell Panorama and Panel Camera, built more cheaply but upgraded with better Wollensak optics, stronger internal panel levers, and a redesigned reflex viewfinder that could be used for either postcard or panoramic framing. Distribution shifted to the American Northern Photo Supply Company, and then to Sears, Roebuck, which finally gave the camera a modest, stable market for several years. A smaller No. 10 model using #118 roll film appeared in 1916, but by 1918, changing tastes and newer panoramic systems ended Bell production. 

 In retrospect, Bell's panoramic cameras are seen as rare but influential examples of how existing rollfilm, folding‑camera ergonomics, and wide‑angle optics could be intelligently combined to democratize panoramic photography.

My Camera:

 My Bell Panorama camera is 13.5" wide by 4.75" tall and 3" deep with the lens retracted. With the front cover closed, the camera is 7.25 "deep. When the front cover is opened and the lens extended, the camera is 7.25" deep. The camera weighs just under 3 pounds, at 2 pounds, 14.6 ounces. 

To open the front, press the button in the middle on top; you can then pull down the lens board and pull out the bellows. The Bell Panoramic camera has a Wollensak Velostigmat Wide Angle, series III, 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 lens, serial # 196261, in a Wollensak Betax shutter with speeds from 1/2 to 1/100, along with "T" for time exposures and "B". The aperture settings range from F/9.5 to F/45. The lens can also rise to correct perspective.

There are a couple of items missing from my camera: the viewfinder, which is usually on the lens, is missing, as with other folding-style cameras, and the handle is gone. When the camera arrived, a long metal piece was taped to its top. Since the long piece on top had accessory shoes, I'm guessing the long piece on the top had a removable finder which wasn't included with the camera. There is also a bubble level added to my camera, which they placed on the lens base, opposite to where the viewfinder would be.

 It also didn't have the secondary winding lever shown in the David Silver article. Still, it is a screw that holds the film adapter in the camera. It is very natural, but not original.

 My camera is a later version, specifically named the Bell "Improved" Panorama and Panel camera, because the back of the camera doesn't fully come off. The bellows are a thicker black material that replaced the original red bellows. The lens base is painted black in place of the original polished natural wood. Still, the flaps on the sides of the camera, which allow the photographer to change the negative format used to photograph their subject, are included and in good working condition. 

These flaps are controlled by two separate control arms, one for the right and one for the left. These arms are on the top of the camera, close to the film advance and the film locking pin. When the lens is extended, you can move the arms forward to move the flap out of the way, making the negative size longer. When these are pulled back, the flaps cover a portion of the negative, reducing its size.

 Depending on the number of flaps used, the camera can produce either a 6x17 when both flaps are used, a 6x24 when only one flap is used, or an astonishing 6x29 negative when both flaps are flipped forward. These are also the numbers on the white tape on the back of the camera. My guess is still the number of turns you do to advance the film to the next frame, because the red windows on the back of the camera are both taped over and not viewable on 120 film when used in the camera.

Back side of the Bell Panorama camera. Note numbers on the white tape.

To open the back of the camera to load film, you first need to open each film chamber. This is done by pressing a small button on the back of the camera, close to the edge. Once pressed, you can open each side. On the left side, where the film takes up the reel and the advance handle is located, inside the chamber is a small handle you pull out that unlocks the back door. Pull out the handle, and with a fingernail or something thin, you can open the left side of the back and slide out the right side of the camera, exposing the film path.

 To load film, I unthreaded the right side, where the adapter is. I put in a fresh roll of 120 film into the camera, replacing the screw that holds the film and adapter in place. One of the tricky parts of this modified camera is threading the film over the plastic pieces taped into the camera's holding frame, which crops the pieces into place. I threaded the film in several times, but it always ended up under the cropping pieces rather than above them. I finally found a solution and got the film through.

With the 3D-printed adapters I used for the No. 3B Quick Focus Kodak, the take-up spool barely fit, and it was extremely tight. I needed to cut a channel into the side so I could slide the adapter over the bottom stem, since it was fixed in place. Usually, on folding cameras, there is a spring-loaded pin that you can pull down and slide the film reel into place, but this camera doesn't offer that. Cutting the channel into the adapter's side allowed me to slide the film into the camera and spool it onto the take-up reel.

 With the camera loaded, I went out to take some photos and see if the film advance numbering system actually works.

My Results:

 The old adage "Live and Learn" is very popular when I go out to shoot with cameras. It generally takes a couple of rolls of film to get to a normal comfort level with a new camera, and that's what happened with the Bell Panoramic camera.

 I shot my first roll of film, thinking the flaps would magically spread out during shooting. After carefully counting the turns to reach the next frame and "thinking" I was shooting in the 6x19 format, I noticed I had only two images on the roll, and they weren't in the widest format. 

 I also noticed the images were very "top-heavy on the negative, meaning the images almost bled off the top of the film, and there was more room on the bottom. This indicated that the adapter didn't work as it should, but the good news is that the exposures were good.

 Excited to know the camera didn't have any light leaks and the shutter was working well, I decided to make some changes and shoot another roll to see what I could get. The first thing I noticed was that when you pull out the lens, that's when you need to determine the format you want to shoot in. When the lens is closed, the flaps are always pulled back, leaving the film unexposed to the full width. That was the easy fix…. remember to flip the flaps forward AFTER you pull out the lens.

 I also needed to make adjustments to the film adapters for the take-up spool. Since the images were top-heavy, I trimmed off about 1/4" off the bottom of the lower adapter. This would push the film lower, making it easier to turn the film advance crank. 

 Loading the camera with a second roll of film, which was much easier than the first time, I headed out to my front yard to take more photos. Pulling the lens out of the camera's body, then flipping the wings forward this time. Now I knew I was going to get a longer image on the negative. Carefully counting the turns of the film advance crank, I took my first photo of the second roll. Advancing the film to the second frame, I leveled the camera using the bubble level and snapped my second photo. The third photo wouldn't be full-width because the film wasn't long enough to capture three full-frame images, so I shot a photo and hoped for the best.

 Here are the results from the first roll.

Here are the results from the second roll.

Conclusion:

 Here are my thoughts on this camera: it's extremely fun to shoot with, and I think the lens is sharp and produces great images. I'm anxious to try the camera out using the different formats, but here are some of my frustrations.

 Not having a viewfinder is rough. I needed to guess at what I was pointing the camera at. That's the first. I really didn't know what the angle of view was, and looking at the photos, it's wider than I anticipated. The Kodak Panoram and other panoramic cameras have lines on top that indicate the approximate angle of view. There's nothing on this camera that shows that.

 It's difficult to hold, but not too bad. I should use a tripod, especially when the top shutter speed is just 1/100. I also need to refine the number of turns to reach the first frame and the number needed to reach the next frame.

 Still, I absolutely LOVE this camera. The images are great, and it's compact and more lightweight than other panoramic cameras. It's a camera I'm extremely happy to have in my collection, and I will be on the lookout for more in the future.

 If you were the original owner or the person who owned this camera before me, great job on the modification. Reach out to me, I'd love to talk to you.

 Thank you for taking the time to read about this small, extremely wide panoramic camera that produced an almost 2.25" x 11" negative. Just incredible.

 Here are my other Camera Reviews.

 Cuny's Cameras and Photos is my online eBay store where I sell cameras I've reviewed, along with other photographic oddities. Stop by and see if there are items you're looking for.

 Until next week, please be safe.

Sakura Bakelite camera

The 1930s Sakura Bakelite: A pocket-sized piece of Japanese history with a surprisingly modern 'X' design.

Looking through my camera collection, I wanted to find something more unusual to write about this week. When I picked up the Sakura camera in its case, I didn't think much about it until I opened the camera's case and saw the writing inside. 

 The writing said, "K. Kitayama" along the bottom, and "kin" on the right and kizyun" on the left, so my immediate thought was to try and do some research to see if I could find the ancestors of the camera, or possibly even the owner of the camera. 

 Since the camera was released in Japan in 1937, I imagined the original owner might still be alive, but the chances are slim. Also, since the lettering was in English and not Japanese, the camera was brought to the US by the owner, but when? 

 Looking more closely at the case, there is a red stamp on the inside top. It appears to be in Japanese, but it's pretty faded; there's also a number "74" that is pretty visible in the lower right corner. So, did the camera enter the US in 1974 when the owner brought it here from Japan, and was it stamped by customs or the Japanese government before leaving?

 Also, when I took the camera out of the case to inspect it for this week's blog, on the back wall of the case is a signature written in ink that appears to be a name starting with K. and Kizyun? I tried many different Google searches for different spellings. While I find these things fascinating, my chances of finding the original owner, or possibly some family members, are very slim. Still, my passion for finding the original owner remains. 

Have you ever found a piece of gear with a name inscribed on it? I'd love to hear your detective stories in the comments.

 Now that I've spent way too many hours going down the rabbit hole trying to find out who the camera belonged to, let me tell you more about the camera itself.

My Sakura Bakelite camera

 The Sakura (Bakelite) camera is an odd, oval-shaped model made by Konishiroku in the late 1930s. Konishiroku was the original company that became Konica. While the Sakura camera is a very basic model that I'll describe below, I understand it's rather rare.

 Sakura, meaning "Cherry" in Japanese, was a short-lived brand produced by Konishiroku during the 1930s. Their most popular items were a series of 3 different, beautifully colored, Sakura Box cameras. One of the cameras used 127-sized film for its 4x6.5cm format. In contrast, their larger cameras were 4.6x6cm or 6x9cm format cameras on 120 film. These cameras are also very collectible and rare items.

 

Konishiroku Before World War II:


The story of Konishiroku (the predecessor to Konica) is essentially the birth of the Japanese photographic industry. Long before it became a global imaging giant, the company began in 1873 when Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic and lithographic materials at Konishiya Rokuemon, a traditional pharmacy in Tokyo.

Ad for Sakura camera from Camera-Wiki

 By 1876, Sugiura moved the photographic department to a dedicated shop called Konishi Honten. This move was visionary; at the time, photography was a fledgling Western import, yet Sugiura foresaw its cultural and commercial potential in Meiji-era Japan.

 In the late 19th century, Japan relied almost entirely on imported cameras and chemicals from Europe and America. Konishi Honten sought to change this. In 1902, the company established the Rokuoh-sha factory in Tokyo, marking a pivotal shift from a mere retailer to a pioneer manufacturer.

Just one year later, in 1903, they released the Cherry Portable Camera. This was Japan's first brand-name camera, a simple box-type unit that democratized photography for the Japanese public, much like the Kodak Brownie did in the West.

 Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the company refined its engineering to compete with high-end German imports. Several key milestones defined this pre-war era:

 

  • The Pearlette (1925): Based on the Vest Pocket Kodak, this folding camera became an icon in Japan, remaining in production in various forms for decades.

  • The Lily and Idea series: These cameras showed Konishiroku's ability to produce sophisticated folding and plate cameras that appealed to serious amateurs and professionals.

  • Establishment of the "Konishiroku" name: In 1921, the company reorganized as a partnership, and by 1936, it was incorporated as Konishiroku Honten Co., Ltd.

 By the mid-1930s, Konishiroku was not just making camera bodies; it was a master of the entire "imaging chain." They produced Sakura brand cameras, film, and photographic paper. In 1935, they began developing their own high-quality lenses under the Hexar name.

 As the 1930s drew to a close, the Japanese government began consolidating the industry for the war effort. Konishiroku's precision manufacturing was increasingly diverted toward military optics, such as aerial cameras and rangefinders. However, the foundation they built—combining retail savvy with deep technical manufacturing—ensured that when the "Konica" brand eventually debuted in the post-war era, it was backed by over 70 years of institutional expertise.

My Camera:

 My Sakura Bakelite camera is an odd, oval-shaped camera with a pull-out front lens used for taking photos, and it retracts when it's in its case for transport. It's only 3.75" wide by 2.75" tall, including the film winding knob, and 2" deep with the lens retracted or 3" with the lens extended. It only weighs 6.1 ounces without film in the camera.

The camera is a rich, dark brown Bakelite with slight mottling and a grainy finish, giving it a nice texture. SAKURA is molded in Bakelite at the top of the pull-out lens area. There is a smooth "X" shape on the faceplate as well, with the lens centered at the "X"'s intersection. 

X design and controls on the face of the Sakura camera

The Sakura camera is extremely basic. Its fixed-focus Rokuoh-Sha Tokyo lens and lack of adjustable apertures make it simple to use, making it ideal for casual photography or quick snapshots. The shutter settings are either "I" for instant or "B" for bulb, used for timed exposures. The shutter is set by a chrome arrow pointing to the desired setting. The shutter release is just below the shutter setting. It is a longer, curved lever, emphasizing its straightforward design for beginners or vintage enthusiasts interested in minimalistic cameras.

On top of the Sakura camera is a chrome pull-up viewfinder in the front, along with a pop-up pointer in the rear, which you use to center your subject before taking the photo. Also, at the top of the camera is the film winding knob, which has an unusual numbering system. The idea is that you start at number 1, then turn the nob to number 2, which is the proper amount of length to get the film to the next frame. I didn't use this method, but used the red window on the back of the camera to find the frame numbers. The red window also features a sliding chrome cover that opens or closes as needed.

At the bottom of the camera is a tripod socket for timed exposures. However, there is no cable release socket, as is generally used for this. Also at the bottom is a lever that locks or unlocks the film chamber, allowing it to be removed from the camera for loading or unloading film. Once the chamber is unlocked, the film chamber lifts up from the top of the camera, but this can only be done when the lens is extended; otherwise, the lens blocks the chamber in the camera body. Once the lens is extended, the film chamber extends from the top of the camera, and you can load film to take photos. Once loaded, slide the film chamber back into the camera body, lock it into place, set the frame counter to 1, and you're ready to snap some photos.

My Results:

 I took two rolls of film with the Sakura camera because the first roll turned out so poorly. It didn't dawn on me that a couple of things happened when shooting the first roll. The first thing I noticed was that I forgot to pull the lens out of the camera body while shooting, but only for the first 1-2 photos, which resulted in some pretty unusual, very out-of-focus images. 

 The second thing that happened was when I was shooting the first roll, I was pulling the shutter speed lever in place of the shutter release, then when I found the shutter release, the shutter speed was set to "B", so all of these images were blurry from motion, as well as overexposed.

 So I loaded a second roll after seeing the disaster from my first roll, and #1 made sure the lens was extended, and #2, I put my finger on the shutter release lever before framing the photo so I wouldn't accidentally pull the shutter settings from "I" to "B". The second roll turned out much better than the first, and while I'm embarrassed by the first, I needed to share my experience with the camera.

 Once I figured out the mistakes, the images actually turned out very nicely.

Conclusion:

 The Sakura was fun to shoot with, but the frustration of the first roll must have befuddled the original users, too. Putting the shutter control on the top of the shutter release made for an interesting, but frustrating, experience. If the company had switched the shutter release with the shutter controller, the experience could have been better. At least switching the "B" and "I" settings would have been helpful.

 Still, I enjoyed using the Sakura bakelite camera. There's still something gnawing at me: who and where, and the story behind this little, oddly shaped Bakelite camera that's approaching 90 years old.

Quick question: Have you ever found a piece of gear with a name inscribed on it? I'd love to hear your detective stories in the comments.

 Thank you for learning about this wonderful and rare Japanese camera, made just before World War II.

 Here is a list of my other CAMERA REVIEWS, with links.

 Cuny's Cameras & Photos is my online eBay store where I sell many of the cameras I've reviewed, along with other photos and camera accessories.

 Until next week, please be safe.