As Easily Handled as a Rifle 



A Revolutionary Motion 

 Picture Camera 



By Charles 

 W. Person 



The camera opened 

 to reveal the inte- 

 rior arrangement. 

 The film box for the 

 storage of the nega- 

 tive is shown at the 

 left and the film 

 leads from it to the 

 exposing or camera 

 mechanism oppo- 

 site. To operate 

 the camera the two 

 parts are locked to- 

 gether to form a 

 compact unit 



CARL E. AKELEY of the American 

 Museum of Natural History has 

 evolved a motion-picture camera 

 so novel in its constructional and opera- 

 ating features that it gives promise of 

 revolutionizing at least one of the di- 

 versified fields of motion-picture photog- 

 raphy — that of the naturalist and big 

 game hunter. It is the first motion- 

 picture camera equipped with the neces- 

 sary mechanism to enable it to enter 

 the hitherto unexplored realm of the 

 hand or still camera and thus place 

 within the scope of the operator all 

 the vast possibilities of quick action 

 and instantaneous photography. 



It is only natural that Air. Akeley 

 should accomplish something permanent- 

 ly valuable in motion-picture photogra- 

 phy, since his wide experience as explorer 

 and inventor has enabled him to dis- 

 cover at first hand the many limits and 

 inherent deficiencies of the modern 

 apparatus. As an inventor he is identi- 

 fied with the cement-gun and with many 

 accessories to the hunter's craft, but he 

 is perhaps best known as the man who 

 has elevated taxidermy from the up- 

 holstery trade into an art. Many 

 animals which form the most valuable 



exhibits in our museums he has hunted 

 and killed in their nati\e haunts, 

 sculpturing their bodies in clay before 

 he covers them with their own skins. 



As a hunter of big game in the wilds 

 of Africa he has used the ordinary 

 motion-picture camera, to find it deficient 

 and even useless. He has attempted 

 time and time again, and at risk of great 

 personal danger, to photograph a herd 

 of charging elephants, or an alligator 

 stealing on its prey, or a trapped lion 

 in its death throes, only to be disap- 

 pointed in the finished film. He once 

 had the rare opportunil\- to photograph 

 a real battle between giant ants of the 

 tropics, but before he could adjust the 

 intricate mechanism of the camera and 

 set it up it was too late. It was dis- 

 appointments like these that stimulated 

 him to concentrate his technical knowl- 

 edge on plans for a new camera. 



There are parts of the Akeley camera 

 which have yet to be named — they are. 

 so new. Indeed, the instrument is such 

 a radical departure from the newest of 

 the old-style machines, that it has few 

 features in common with them. Primar- 



