Ful-Vue Cameras

Ful-Vue Cameras

So, what are these Ful-Vue cameras? Well several different models were known as Ful-Vue and they were produced between 1939 and c.1959. These included:

Ful-Vue (1939-c.1943) - Maker: Ensign
Ful-Vue (modified) (1946-1949) - Maker: Barnet Ensign
Ful-Vue Model II (1950-1953) - Maker: Barnet Ensign Ross
Ful-Vue Super (1954-c.1959) - Maker: Ross-Ensign
Fulvueflex Synchroflash (1957-1959) - Maker: Ross Ensign
 
The two pictured are the earliest model (left) and the Model II.

The focus of this post will be the early, more conventional looking model.  Introduced in 1939, this simple pressed steel box proved very popular.  A key factor was surely its large viewfinder.  Adverts describe it as “bigger” and “better” and Ensign claimed it gave “a better idea than ever before of what the finished result is likely to be…”*.

The camera itself is a simple light-tight box with a crystalline enamel finish.  It has a fixed focus patent Ensign ‘all distance lens’, which takes sharp images of anything 8 feet away or more.  Sharp images can be achieved down to a distance of 3 feet thanks to a pull out lens mount.  The mirror for the viewfnder is a polished metal plate secured in place with screws.
The shutter has two settings.  ‘I’ (instantaneous) and ‘T’, for time exposures.  The first takes pictures with a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second.  The ‘T’ setting will keep the shutter open as long as you want. 
One reel of 120 film will produce twelve 6x6cm pictures.  There is a red window on the back of the camera that you look through when advancing the film.  Numbers will appear in the window, indicating when the film is advanced far enough.

The camera has a back door, which unclips from the top, allowing the inner part to be removed to load the film.

Technicalities aside, the camera is so delightfully simple it is virtually idiot proof.  There is no manual focus, no f-stops, no calibration metre, it really is a case of point and click. But the humble box camera was meant to be a camera that anyone, including children, could use. That’s not to say it can’t capture high-quality images, but without the advanced features of more expensive cameras, photographers are more reliant on favourable lighting and more restricted to stationary, or slow moving subjects.

*source: www.ensign.demon.co.uk/ful-vue.htm