Sawyers View-master Personal Stereo

The company

Sawyers was a distributor of postcards and related fancy paraphernalia, I would guess similar to today’s Hallmark. The line that led to this product was a 3D handheld viewer using daisy wheel slide cards, which I remember from my childhood in the 1950s, that offered 3D sets of images featuring subjects such as buildings, structures, nature, and so on, all in vivid colour at the palm of your hand.

With the stereo handheld viewers accounting for a good share of sales and the stereo photography segment growing, Sawyers saw an opportunity to branch into user-created slides. Using the View-Master brand, the trade name under which the viewers were sold, was just a natural forward step. The self-creating stereo slides paved the way for more viewers, handheld and desktop, stereo projectors for this format, and on the way, native 35mm projectors, as well as slide-mounting gear and consumables, altogether a whole niche universe.

The first camera under this brand was the View-Master Personal Stereo, a camera made by Stereocrafters, makers of the Videon models, whose founders were ex-employees of David White, of the Realist fame.

The company got a taste for the up-and-coming hobby photographers market, so in 1957 it added two very plain cameras, the Nomad 127 and Nomad 620, named after the film formats they used. These models could not be any simpler, and they were presumably targeted at the entry-level user segment. Next, for an echelon up, came the flagship, the Mark IV, a rebranded Primo Jr. by Topcon, one of the few Topcon cameras to enjoy some glory.

The Personal Stereo did not deliver the expected success, so it was called off and, in 1961, replaced by a much better-looking, slick View-Master Stereo Colour. An immediate successor, the Stereo Colour Mark II, followed. The Mark II was the same as the earlier, with different markings and a restyled trigger lever. Regula made both cameras. Perhaps Sawyer got the idea from David White, who had offered the Stereo-Realist 1045 in the US some six years earlier, made by Iloca in Germany. Regula was a prolific German camera maker that sold cameras under its own brand as well as rebranded for other makers and distributors. Oddly, they did not have a stereo camera under their own name.

In 1996, Sawyers was sold to GAF, which continued to offer peripheral products under a fresh design but the same brand name. The line had ended when GAF left the photography market in 1977.

The camera

The View-Master used 35mm film producing images of 12×13 mm, about .5″ x.5″, as big as my fingernail. Total on a roll was 69 pairs on 36 36-exposure roll or 37 on 20 20-exposure roll. The format was to match the already available handheld daisy wheel viewers, with their specialized projectors as well. Meopta had adopted the same format, while most US makers adopted the popular Realist Stereo. The format was primarily designed for hobbyists, as I doubt that existing emulation chemistry would have allowed larger images. To complement the cameras, Sawyer offered an add-on close-up lens and a flash gun, in addition to the handheld and desktop viewers, projectors and mounting kits. The cameras were sold in several packages, either on their own or as a kit with mounting supplies. The user could either self-mount the slides or send them to Sawyers. The standard camera colour was all black, with a rare tan version that fetches more on the collectors’ market today.

A good source of information on everything View-Master Personal Stereo is Vmresource, although it seems to be long in the tooth.

The Viewmaster Personal Stereo camera

At first glance, the camera seems quirky, as if something is wrong with it. It looks like Mr. Potato Head with unrelated parts stuck on in random directions. In short, it is not a handsome camera. But, as the Yiddish proverb says, if you are not pretty, you should be smart, and smart it is.

• First thing to notice is that the body is unbalanced. It is hardly a straight line, except at the bottom. It doesn’t make it a bad product, but it does not make you want to toy with it. Style or finesse were never the US camera’s strong suit, but here the designer had resigned before it went to production.
• Both front lenses look like just lens-thread mounts, with the actual lens missing. There is a flat glass panel in front of the very visible shutter.
• The camera is clearly meant for beginner use. At the top is an exposure-assist calculator with a long explanation, and a similar detailed text at the bottom.
• While saying that, it is definitely a ‘read the manual first’ camera.
• It is heavy and unbalanced, although lighter than the other US-made stereo cameras of the time: 680 g vs an average of 750 g.
• The body is made of cast aluminum, with a trim mix of aluminum, steel, and brass, all black-painted. I clean the cameras with alcohol once they come in and again when working on them. Here, the black paint immigrated from the camera to my hands, embedded so well that I had to scrub it off. I’ve seen a similar poor paint job on post-war Eastern Bloc cameras, where the comrades used to dilute the paint and sell the excess on the black market to supplement their income, but it is a first on an American model.
• The top of the camera is busy:
  • At the right is the winder, skirted by a frame counter with a floating steel wire chevron. To set, pull up and turn. Set the chevron per the roll length, 20 or 36 normal exposures. The frame counter has a mixed personality: it counts up on the first run and down on the second. There is no rewind knob, as the film ends up in the feeder cartridge. The feeding cartridge pivot turns in unison with the take-off spool, in both directions. More below.
  • In the middle are the shutter speed dial and the aperture setting dials, both are parts of the exposure assist calculator, nicely named EXPO SURE. Using it is simple: set the film speed, then dial the shutter and aperture until you match the light conditions from the ample options there: winter/summer, bright to dull light, and the subject colour (?). Once done, the settings are ready to shoot or to fine-tune, compensating for one another.
    You may skip the calculator and set the shutter and aperture as you wish without going through the notions.
  • Further left is the designer parting touch, a flash sync port, that looks like a miniature gun on a model cruiser. A large slot screwhead. At a second look, it is an add-on accessory adapter for a different sync port.
  • On the left shoulder is a small lens that turns black when the camera is empty or shows a red cross when film is loaded. The red cross turns with the film winding.
• The back has the viewfinder window, as with those era cameras, tiny. It is a relief after working on the Realist, which has the viewer at the bottom.
• Bottom has detailed usage instructions, just the manual essence. I have not seen such detailed information on other camera body. A credit to the manufacturer, Stereocraft Engineering Company, is also given.
• The hinged back opens via a hook on the side, pull up to open.
• The front, from top, has:
  • The front viewer window.
  • Two lenses, 62mm apart, which is a common human pupillary distance. The lenses show plain glass panels, as if it were just a lens bay. The shutter panels are visible behind it, and the lens is behind the shutter. The shutter is made of two sliding steel panels, with two hollows, one on top of the other, to match the assigned image location on the film. The shutter works much like a curtain shutter; one part slides after the other, only here it is a stiff, not a cloth or sectional metal. The miniature aperture leaves can be seen deep inside the lens cavity.
  • There is no focusing dial. It is a fixed focus, from 2m – 7′ to eternity. Sawyers offered add-on lenses for close-up.
  • In between the lenses is a dial marked ‘A’ and ‘B’. Set ‘A’ for the first half of the roll, so the film winds onto the take-off spool. Set to ‘B’ for the second half, which winds the roll back into the cartridge. At the same time, at ‘A’ position, the image mask is at the bottom of the film plane, and at ‘B’ it is at the top, so two images are simultaneously taken with no light leakage. As mentioned, this camera has no rewind assembly. To set this dial, turn it fully until it clicks into place.
  • The trigger is at the front right, recessed, probably to avoid accidental shots. Next to it is the remote trigger port.
• Inside the camera, the vertically sliding masks flank a double sprocket film guide. The pressure plates on the back are split, presumably to ensure proper proximity between the top and bottom film and mask.
• Sending for development; mark the cartridge so the lab will not cut it into the usual strips.

To load the film,

• Set the front selector to ‘A’ till it clicks in place. In between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ is a square; make sure it is hidden behind the front housing.
• Wind the film knob till ot locks.
• Lift it to set the frame counter per the film you use, 20x or 36x.
• Set the wire chevron to the same position as a memo to film used.
• Insert the full cartridge into the left bay. There is no room to wiggle, and the connector that slides into the cartridge is not free-turning, so ensure the cartridge sits securely in place. Otherwise, the perforations will not align with the sprockets, and the back will not close.
• The film moves 36mm at each winding.
• Close the back, turn the winder anti-clockwise till it locks. Fire this trigger and turn again till it locks. Repeat twice more. It is now ready for the first twin images set.
• Shoot till the window locks and the trigger stops, meaning you reached half of the roll.
• Set the front dial to ‘B’, again, all the way.
• Turn the winder clockwise and continue shooting till the roll ends.
• There is no rewind system, as the film rolls back into the feeder cartridge.
• For a good measure, the bottom of the camera has detailed instructions for the above.

As stated above, the camera is odd, but smart. It works in a completely different way, whether it be mono or stereo cameras. It is definitely designed by engineers, not industrial designers. What it is short on in style, it makes up for in ingenuity and innovative thinking. For the tinkerer, it is built much simpler than the German/Japanese cameras, and is easy to service. For collectors, it is a short-lived, unique camera that should have a place among prized US-made cameras.