Patents and Prowess - Text 4
The final noteworthy improvement Akeley came up with was the tripod head accompanying the camera. Designed with a gyroscopic system, it made possible both horizontal pans and vertical tilts which were much more fluid than those of traditional systems using a crank. It also facilitated the use of the camera by a sole camera operator. More than any of the camera’s other features, this improvement accounts for its success in the film industry, especially in Hollywood fiction film production. The fluidity of the pans and tilts won out over the irregularity of the film’s passage through the camera, because it was constructed with a hand crank.[10] Following Bell & Howell and Mitchell cameras, which were already motor-driven, in 1928 “Akeley specialists” joined the dynamic qualities of the film stock and the tripod by attaching an adapter to the camera, making it possible to connect it with an external motor.[11] The Akeley camera’s appeal to explorers and reporters also lay in its ergonomic design. Its handle on top of the camera body facilitated filming. The size of the magazine (an internal capacity of 60 m, with feed and take-up reels) also made it possible to shoot for around one minute and thirty seconds of 35 mm film. In short, it is possible to say, as we proposed in the introduction, that this camera was born for adventure (it was functional and ergonomic) but also had distinctive symbolic capital (its singular shape, which was easily handled by astute camera operators to bring out its full potential).
