The Photosphere

In the 1880s, the growing degree of amateur interest in photography encouraged camera manufacturers to design equipment, which was easier to use and harder-wearing. It was in this context that Napoleon Conti developed the photosphere, a metal camera designed for exploration in tropical countries.

From 1886, Conti undertook to build a metal camera which could resist any kind of weather and humidity in tropical countries, the tropicalized photographic body. Yet Conti did not stop there. He wanted to design a new camera which was easier to use and lighter. In 1888 he applied for a patent for the photosphere, the same year as George Eastman launched the Kodak, the first camera designed to be used with film. The Compagnie Française de Photographie began selling the photosphere in 1889.

The photosphere, an entirely metallic camera, was equipped with a flat back which could take a double chassis or a magazine. The hemisphere-shaped, spring-activated shutter gave this camera its unique shape.

Subsequently, Conti did not stop improving his camera, making it more and more precise, easier to use, and equipping it with various accessories, including a viewfinder, and even a mount enabling the camera to be fitted to a bicycle. Over the course of several years, the photosphere was made for four different formats, including one model in 1891 for taking stereoscopic exposures.

The photosphere was on sale for roughly a decade; some 4,000 units were made, including all the various formats. A practical piece of kit, the photosphere’s compact size made it an immediate hit among amateurs and explorers.

Illustration:
Le Photosphère , French Company of Photography, Paris, since 1889.
With frosted glass and two frames. For a plate size of 9×12 cm. Equipped with a hemispherical shutter of the same type and contemporary of the Escopette du Genevois Darier.