Steve Weinrebe's Mode Studio

I have been reading the many excellent tributes to Sir Edmund Hillary, who died yesterday at the age of 88, and I saw several references to the famous photo he took of Tenzing Norgay at the summit. What I really wanted to know, what was the camera? Some minutes of searching later and I found a National Geographic channel reference here, to Hillary’s 35mm Kodak Retina. I then found this site that features the photograph. The camera itself was apparently a Kodak Retina model 118, with (most likely) an f: 3.5 Zeiss Tessar lens (or alternatively a Xenar, or Kodak Anastigmat lens). See a photo of this gorgeous and vintage rangefinder here. Besides wondering what type of film he used, I also wonder if he made any modifications to the camera, removing the grease to keep the parts from locking up in the extreme cold. Anyone knowledgeable about this please comment below.

Much could be said about the impact that the photo Hillary took at Everest’s summit had on history. Without the photograph, no one would believe Hillary’s and Norgay’s success (today a camera’s GPS would take care of that). Here is an interesting link speculating that if the Kodak Vest Pocket camera that Mallory and Irvine carried in their failed Everest climb in 1924, could be found history would be quite different.

On a personal note, next time you see a vintage camera at a yard sale, flea market, or auction, please buy it and put it on your bookshelf. I believe photographers should own the legacy of vintage cameras, not interior decorators who buy these for window dressing and store them, lost, in prop rooms. They should be displayed and appreciated for the masterful works of industrial design that they are. Personally I have a couple of vintage Kodak roll film cameras with bellows (one a later version of the Vest Pocket camera mentioned above, and an Autographic Jr., complete with a “pen” that was used to scratch a note on the film through a little flap in the back of the camera), as well as two early rangefinders, and parts of an ancient Century view camera made from mahogany, and which I have mounted on the wall by my desk.
Posted by Steve Weinrebe