Chambre Automatique De Bertsch

Paris France
ca.  1860

Ex-collection Michael Kramer

Adolph Bertsch’s Chambre Automatique was a portable wet plate camera and one of the pioneers of photomicrography.  He called his brass wet-collodion camera “automatique” because it had a fixed focus.  The brass lens cap was used instead of a shutter.  Bertsch sold his camera as a kit that enabled the photographer to prepare and process wet plates.  Images were composed using the black wire frame finder located on top of the camera.  Bertsch manufactured his cameras in a variety of styles for both landscape and portraiture, as well as, stereo.

Examples of the 1860s Chambre Automatique De Bertsch are quite rare and usually found only in museum collections.