Patents and Prowess - Text 2
In an article in Moving Picture World dated 8 July 1916, the Akeley camera was described as an instrument which stood out radically from former machines. The camera was cylindrical, with the film stock being held in a magazine inside the camera’s body. Its operation was described in the following way: “The camera rotates in a steel ring on ball bearings and is supported by a curved arm, which rises from a sub-base on which the panoramic base rests when in operation. The complete apparatus, camera and panoramic devices, form a single compact unit to be used with or without a tripod.” The notice continues: “The camera can be mounted for rapid picture taking. It can be turned in any direction as accurately and quickly as a cowboy drawing his iron. If a tripod is not at hand, a window-sill, a rock, a saddlehorn, a tree branch, a knee – in fact anything stationary – may serve as a base for operations.”[4]
