As we mentioned in the first post, we have purchased an Intrepid Camera and lens. Typically, mere days after we had taken delivery, Intrepid announced an updated version of the camera! Having had a good look at the new model it doesn’t offer anything we desperately need so it’s not too distressing.

The camera itself is essentially a light-proof box with a hole at one end for the lens (which must be mounted on a lens board) and a hole at the other end for the ground glass screen and (once focussed) the film plate. The bellows allows you to move the two ends so that the lens is correctly focussed. And that’s really it!
Here’s the view from the back.

When you see pictures of people using these cameras in the field, they have a black cloth over their head - the cloth isn’t actually attached to the camera (which is what I thought) but just draped over themselves to block the light from outside as the image you see above on the screen is actually very pale and hard to see in daylight. Once the picture’s focussed, you pull the glass plate out and replace it with a film plate…more on that in another post!.