Wollensak portable reel-to-reel tape recorder

Wollensak Optical was an American manufacturer of audio-visual products located in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. At the height of their popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, many brands of

movie camera A movie camera (also known as a film camera and cine-camera) is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie sc ...

s came with a Wollensak Velostigmat lens. Wollensak

reel-to-reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is pla ...

tape recorders were prized for their robust construction and value. In the 1960s, Wollensak was the choice tape recorder for amateur home, school, and office uses. They were produced in both stereo and mono designs. The firm was founded in 1899 by Andrew Wollensak to produce camera shutters. At its peak in the 1950s, it employed over 1000 people. The company had several owners, including Revere Camera Company and 3M Company. Wollensak ceased operation in 1972.

Camera equipment

Wollensak began making camera lenses in 1902. The company also produced camera shutters for

large format Large format refers to any imaging format of or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the or size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger than the frame ...

cameras. They made shutters such as the Betax, Alphax, Optimo and, for the

Graflex Graflex was a manufacturer that gave its brand name to several models of camera. The company was founded as the ''Folmer and Schwing Manufacturing Company'' in New York City in 1887 by William F. Folmer and William E. Schwing as a metal working ...

Corporation, Rapax. The Betax shutters were patented in 1912 and remain popular for large format photographers. Betax shutters are made in sizes from #0 to the huge size #5. These shutters are very reliable and relatively easy to repair. Wollensak purchased the Fastax high speed rotating-prism camera developed by

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

from

Western Electric The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...

, and improved it to a rate of 10,000 frames/second. Fastax cameras were used for recording projectiles and explosions, including nuclear explosions. The cameras, with the rotating prism removed, were used for "streak" and "smear" photography. Wollensak made only one still camera model, the "Stereo 10" 35 mm 3D camera. They formed a partnership with the Revere Camera Company that led to them offering some movie cameras (mostly 8 mm) under their name in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Audio-visual

3M also used the Wollensak brand name on audio tape recorders for many years; the Wollensak recorders were solidly built with all-metal construction. They were among the first manufacturers of cassette decks, as well as 8-track decks for home use.

References

Surplus Shed
the current owner of the trademark

* ttp://owyheesound.com/fastax.html A Wollensak Fastax camerabr>Archived Fastax camera footage
of the

Trinity nuclear test Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert abo ...

(1945) Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York (state) {{photo-stub