Accession No
4416
Brief Description
three prototype cloud cameras and related equipment, negatives and slides, by Robin Hill and R. and J. Beck, English, c. 1923
Origin
England; Cambridge; and England; London
Maker
Hill, Robin R. and J. Beck
Class
meteorology; photography
Earliest Date
1923
Latest Date
1923
Inscription Date
Material
metal; brass; wood; glass; leather; paper; plastic; card; cloth; velvet
Dimensions
shelf space length 910mm; breadth 455mm; height 290mm
Special Collection
Provenance
These objects were donated after Robert (Robin) Hill's death. Hill designed this cloud camera whilst working in the Biochemical Laboratory, University of Cambridge. The prototype was later converted into a commercially produced model by R & J Beck.
Inscription
‘ROBIN HILL CLOUD CAMERA 180˚
PATENT
R & J . BECK . LTD LONDON’ (commercial lens)
Description Notes
Three prototype cloud cameras and related equipment, negatives and slides, by Robin Hill and R & J Beck, English, 1923.
4416.1 Robin Hill patent cloud camera 180°, fish-eye lens on metal mount.
4416.2, 3 Two prototype fish-eye lenses in wooden mounts, marked I and II.
4416.4, 5 Two home made camera bodies, containing Newman and Guardia film magazines (but lacking lenses). (These two items were previously catalogued erroneously as: "Two wooden boxes for film trays, with leather light-excluders.")
4416. 6 R & J Beck Ltd cloud camera, fish-eye lens, metal and wooden mount.
4416.7 Agfa orange filter in card box.
4416.8 Red filter and lens in wooden mount (actually the back half of 4416.2).
4416.9 Fish-eye lens in right-angled wooden mount.
4416.10 Polarising filter.
4416.11 Sun disc.
4416.12 Two small wood cubes marked I and II.
4416.13 Small brass bracket and screws.
[NOTE: 4416.9 to .13 are all in a ‘Whatman’ card box.]
4416.14 Package of images on gelatine paper.
4416.15 Newman & Guardia Ltd film magazine in case.
4416.16 Newman & Guardia Ltd empty case.
4416.17, 18 Two Players tobacco tins, one with sun disc and leather, other empty.
4416.19 Leather carrying case and strap.
4416.20, 22, 23, 24, 25 Five boxes of glass slides.
4416.21 Box of images on card
4416.26 Box of stereo images on card.
4416.27 2 loose glass slides. (formally T123 identified as being part of 4416 on 7/11/2002)
condition: fair/good
References
Allison Ksiazkiewicz; 'Cloud Studies'; Explore Whipple Collections online article; Whipple Museum of the History of Science; University of Cambridge: https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-whipple-collections/meteorology/cloud-studies
Events
Description
The cloud camera was invented in the 1920s by the Cambridge plant biochemist Robin Hill (1899-1991). Hill’s interest in meteorology led him to develop a camera with a timer and ‘fish-eye’ lens capable of taking whole-sky photographs for surveying cloud forms and other atmospheric effects. His lens system was manufactured by opticians R & J Beck of London but neither the RAF, the British or the Dutch Met services adopted it. In the 1950s Hill lent one of his prototype cameras to two colleagues in the Cambridge University Botany School, G. C. Evans and D. E. Coombe, who used it to make pioneering records of light penetration through the tree canopy of forests. Evans and Coombe’s technique was so popular that the instrument maker R. and J. Beck began to produce a commercial version of Hill’s camera, and the use of “hemispherical photography” persists to this day in the fields of ecology and forestry.
This collection of artefacts includes Hill’s experimental fish-eye lenses and the images they captured, as well as a production lens made by the instrument firm of R. & J. Beck.
26/03/2008
Created by: Anita McConnell on 26/03/2008
FM:39897
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