Hyper camera series
The Hyper camera series is a view camera design manufactured by the Themiclesian firm UNIOP since 1913 and comprises of several iterations and variations. It was meant to be a highly portable camera for outdoor work and was a sister product to the larger but heavier Portable Camera, which was discontinued in 1971 and despite its name intended for indoor work. The current design, the Hyper Pro III, has been in production in small quantities since 2002 from UNIOP's Themiclesian workshop in Ku-ngwyan.
Features
General design
The Hyper is a foldable view camera, which consists of a lens mounted to the front standard and a focusing glass mounted to the rear standard; the two standards are connected by a bellows, which allows the distance between the film and glass to be adjusted, achieving focus of the desired subject. The maximum bellows length of the Hyper Camera, as of the Pro III, is 36 inches which can focus a 900 mm lens at infinity.
Movements
Unlike many other field cameras, the Hyper allows both front and rear standards movements, since the rear standard is not rigidly attached to the carrying frame. All movements are geared from the Pro I model, which was introduced in 1971.
Rangefinder
Newer models of the Hyper manufactured since the 1960s include features like a rangefinder and the patented multi-point illuminometer. The rangefinder, made for easy focusing on distant objects without using a loupe, was suspended from the inside of the carrying frame; it does not use the image from the taking lens, so there is a slight parallex error, which is acceptable as it is only used to achieve focus and not to compose.
Illuminometer
The illuminometer was achieved with a partial mirror between the focusing glass and the fresnel glass. This mirror beams a small part of the light hitting the focusing glass downwards onto a matrix of photovoltaic panels, which moves dials to indicate the amount of exposure on each of the panels which in turn reflect the light on various points on the focusing glass.
Movable fresnel screen
A fresnel screen is used to direct and concentrate light that would otherwise be diffuse, thus increasing its apparent brightness when viewed at a specific angle. Fresnel screens have long been used to enhance the image seen on the focusing glass, which otherwise appears dim and faded. However, the ridges on fresnels do create artifacts that can challenge the photographer's judgment of the whole image, and once installed it cannot be removed on most cameras without disassembly. The Hyper Camera permits the user to lower the fresenl screen (into the bellows) with a mechanical lever and thus to look at the ground glass image itself.
Filter mount
Since view camera lenses almost never offer zoom capability, a photographer is likely to carry a variety of lenses to cope with different subjects and compositions. To carry filters for all lenses often creates clutter. The Hyper Camera's solution to this is to include a square filter mount on the front standard, permitting the photographer to change lens without changing filter.
Product history
The Hyper Camera began as a product of UNIOP's commercial rival, the Lightning Optics Company, first sold under this name in 1900. At that time, UNIOP's camera body was what is now known as the Portable Camera, which shot a 11 in × 13 in (280 mm × 330 mm) film or plate negative. UNIOP eventually merged with Lightning Optics and took over manufacturing of the Hyper Camera, which shot a smaller 7 in × 9 in (180 mm × 230 mm) negative.
Unlike conventional cameras of its time, which usually consisted of two boxes sliding into each other, the Hyper formed most of its camera body with the bellows, which permitted an even greater range of focus distances and reduced weight, but that reduced weight also left it more susceptible to vibrations.
Once taken over by UNIOP in 1913, the Hyper Camera went through a progress of technological improvement seeking to bring the technical and artistic capability of stationary cameras to it. As a camera for field use, the Hyper had to be protected against bumps and drops, but a sturdy shell would reduce portability; thus, the shells of the camera were made to be part of the rail on which the front and rear standards slid. When folded, the front and rear stanards slid into each other completely into a case that was no thicker than 3 inches.
While the Hyper achieved market dominance in Themiclesia by the 1920s, it also garnered considerable sales abroad. It was positioned as a slightly more economical and yet more capable camera, compared to leading alternatives, for most of its history before the Pan-Septentrion War. Its usage during that conflict, expanded by large government orders from both Maracaibo and Themiclesia, burnished the Hyper's reputation as a fully-featured and rugged camera. Demands of the war also transformed the Hyper Camera technically: the Hyper came with a backpack (to which a folding tripod could also be attached) for a small surcharge, so that a photographer would retain the use of both hands while in transit with the camera.
With the popularization of photography as an art form, the Hyper also saw inroads in the education market amongst art academies, universities, and high schools. The Hyper, along with its smaller cousin the Hyper Miniature shooting 4x5 film, continued to see increasing sales after the end of the PSW and into the 1950s. UNIOP made several successful market campaigns to portray the Hyper as the "next step" for amateur photographers who had exhausted the capabilities of smaller cameras or who desired prins of higher quality.
However, the 1960s saw the mainstream of camera shifting from the view camera to viewfinder and rangefinder cameras, and the next two decades again to single lens reflex cameras or SLRs. The Hyper's sales plateaued by 1958 and started to drop in 1961. By UNIOP's understanding, an important advantage of these camera bodies is their smaller form factor and the convenience of the 120 film or 135 film, which were daylight-loading and could be advanced with a dial. In contrast, a view camera like the Hyper is constrained to be at least the size of the rear standard that held the focusing glass. UNIOP, whose subsidiary Luminar made smaller cameras, believed that it could resurrect slowing Hyper sales by introducing to it some of a smaller camera's convenient features.
Aside from a small footprint and thus portability, an important advantage of a viewfinder or rangefinder camera is that the photographer can use the extra viewfinder to compose and focus the camera while the film remains loaded, which means the photographer can effective shoot continuously without manipulating the film between shots, aside from advancing it by a lever. For the Hyper, the issue of changing film can be partly resolved by using a film cartridge, which is a stack of several film holders; an exposed holder can be removed, leaving the holder behind it ready for exposure. However, for a view camera, the fact that the film blocks the focusing glass means a photographer cannot compose or check focus with film already loaded; this issue is not resolved by the film cartridge. UNIOP thus incorporated a separate viewfinder and rangefinder to the Hyper, which was technically simple to accomplish.
By the late 60s, consumer cameras started to offer exposure controls. While UNIOP understood that its primary audience was trained photographers who could properly gauge exposure, it nevertheless successfully developed the Multi-local Illuminometer in 1969, which used a semi-reflecting prism to direct light to a bank of photosensitive panels located on the inside of the rear standard. These panels then converted light levels to electrical signals, which can then be checked with a dial located on the rear standard. Since the prism was almost transparent, the illuminometer could be operable with minimal disturbance to the brightness of the focusing glass. This advancement was judged serious enough for a rebranding: the 1970 production model incorporating this feature inter alia was called the Hyper Pro, intended to re-animate dwindling view camera sales.
UNIOP revamped the Pro with the Pro II in 1975, which added a "loupe frame" permitting the photographer to move the built-in loupe across the glass without having to hold it. The luminometer was also made more sensitive in limited light. Yet by 1978 it became clear that the aim to re-introduce the view camera to the professional and amateur mainstream, at least by the current strategy of making the Hyper more technologically complete, would be unachievable. The proliferation of smaller film sizes, and along with it prints made by enlargement, seems to have rendered the quality of such prints normal and acceptable. The advantages of large film size became more of a quaint luxury than an industry standard. Thus, in 1980, UNIOP cancelled the development of the Pro III and resolved to continue sales of the Pro II for as long as justified.