The Periflex
looks at the series of Periflex 35mm cameras, made by the British company K G Corfield, and the intriguing story behind the very first model
John Wade looks at K G Corfield’s series of Periflex 35mm cameras
In 1953, The British Journal Photographic Almanac published an advertisement for a camera that didn’t exist. It showed something similar to, but not the same as, a Leica, with the top plate containing film wind and rewind knobs, a shutter speed dial and a square viewfinder with an accessory shoe on top. The shutter release was positioned on the front of the body to one side of a lens which bore little resemblance to any other of the day.
‘ The new 35mm camera by Corfield for Great Britain and the World,’ proclaimed the text, which also went on to mention that the new camera accepted all Leica-type lenses and had a focal plane shutter. More than that it didn’t say. The camera didn’t even have a name.
The reason why this advertisement was so vague was because it had been rushed out to meet a tight deadline towards the end of 1952, when the annually published BJP Almanac went to press. At that time, only the basic body of the camera existed as a prototype. Everything else was a figment of an artist’s imagination.
The year 1953 was an important one for Britain, with 2 June being designated as Coronation Day, when our present Queen would be crowned Elizabeth II. At a time when the austerity that followed the end of the Second World War eight years before still overshadowed the nation, it was a time for new beginnings, new optimism and new hope for the country. What better time, then, to launch a new British camera?
The camera in question wasn’t designed in the conventional way; it started off as one thing, then just sort
of evolved into something else. It was the brainchild of Kenneth Corfield, later to become Sir Kenneth for his work in the industrialisation of Northern Ireland to which his factory moved in 1958. A decade before, however, he and his brother John founded K.G. Corfield Limited, based at Wolverhampton, initially to make photographic accessories.
But Corfield, an engineer by trade, had always harboured a longing to make his own camera. His first thoughts were for a highly sophisticated subminiature 16mm model, a project soon abandoned in favour of a somewhat novel 35mm camera. His initial idea was to produce a moderately priced 35mm body with a focal-plane shutter that would accept Leica lenses. At that time, Board of Trade restrictions prevented the import of expensive foreign cameras and lenses unless justification could be found on medical, industrial, research or technical grounds. English purchase tax (that predated today’s VAT) added further restrictions. So Corfield’s prime market was for photographers who already owned pre-war Leica lenses and who wanted an easy-to-buy, reasonably priced second body.
The basic design and dimensions of the body were decided upon and production began on that even before there had been any real plans for the shutter mechanism or other parts that would have to fit inside. Tooling of the body was given to the
‘The compromise that Corfield came up with resulted in one of the more unusual features that has been seen in camera design’
company’s toolmaker, Gerald Whitton. By the middle of 1952 he had a working prototype of a body with a focal-plane shutter and a Leica thread lens mount. What he didn’t have was a viewfinder, a means of focusing, or even a lens.
That was when an artist was hired to produce the illustration for the upcoming advertisement, based on the existing body, with the addition of an imaginary lens and viewfinder. Corfield later reported that he was disappointed with the result, but the deadline was close and the advertisement went off to the printers. Only then did thoughts turn to adding some kind of focusing device to the camera body.
By far the most popular type of quality 35mm cameras at this time were coupled rangefinder models, and with so little competition from overseas, Reid and Sigrist in Leicester had already come up with a top- quality model in the shape of a Leica lookalike called the Reid. An accurate rangefinder, of the type found in the Reid, not to mention pre-war second-hand Leicas and Contaxes, however, was thought to be beyond the technical skills of the Corfield factory.
So how about a single lens reflex (SLR), to maybe rival the then current Wrayflex, which Wray Optical Works in Kent had already produced?
Some kind of reflex design was considered. But that would have involved a redesign of the body which was too slim to take a reflex mirror. Producing an SLR therefore would have meant more tooling and capital investment than was available, and would also have increased the cost of a camera that was planned to meet a budget price.
Unusual feature
The compromise that Corfield came up with resulted in one of the more unusual features seen in camera design. It involved a small knob on the top plate that the photographer depressed to lower a tiny periscope into the film plane, prior to exposure. Looking down into the periscope eyepiece magnified part of the image by a factor of eight. Later cameras would take this into the centre of the image, but on the first models, the device extended only as far as one small area at the top. It wasn’t meant to be a proper reflex viewfinder. It was just a method of focusing. The camera still featured a separate optical viewfinder next to the periscope. This unusual focusing device was planned, designed and tested in three months flat. Not surprisingly, Corfield now began to feel that it would be a waste to sell the camera only as a body for Leica lenses. What it really needed was a lens of its own.
Enquiries were made at Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, which was already making lenses for the Reid, as well as at Dallmeyer, which was making Leica-fit lenses of its own. Both of these options, however, would have taken the price of the camera way past its target market. Importing European lenses was also considered to be impractical due to cost and import restrictions in the early 1950s.
That was when Corfield discovered E. Elliott Ltd, a company based in his hometown of Walsall, and which owned a subsidiary called the British Optical Lens Company. They made mainly spectacle lenses, but when Corfield met Frederick Archenhold, an optician for
the company, he was persuaded to make his own lens. As a result, Archenhold’s company made the glass lens elements, while the engineers at the Corfield factory undertook the precision work of placing them accurately in suitable mounts.
A matter of faith
With time very short now, there was little scope, not to mention budget, for in- depth testing. In the end the important centring of the elements in the lens was undertaken using a home-made device that involved rotating the lens in its mount beneath a lamp. If the image from the lamp remained stationary while the lens was rotated, then the elements were considered to be correctly centred.
Despite this somewhat crude testing arrangement, Corfield always had faith that the resulting lens would not only be of the right quality, but that it could also be made to come in at the right price. This late in the day, it was a gamble, but it was one that paid off. The new camera was launched in May 1953, just one month before the Coronation. Its name was derived from the two words that epitomised its design: PERIscope and reFLEX.
The original Periflex was distinctive for having a brown pig-skin covering on an aluminium body, the top and base plate in a black anodised finish. The 50mm f/3.5 Lumar lens was made in an aluminium mount and available in coated and uncoated versions.
The pig-skin version, which was easily finger-marked, didn’t prove as popular as expected and the following year it was dropped in favour of a second version of the Periflex with a more traditional black leatherette covering. A third version of the body appeared in 1955 with silver anodised top and base plates. The first two versions used the Lumar lens, while the third version featured a 50mm f/3.5 Lumar-X in a restyled mount.
The pressure plate on the very early cameras was made of plate glass, chosen not only for its flatness and smoothness but also because it was cheaper than tooling up for a metal plate. All three Periflex models used the manually operated periscope focusing device, had shutters speeded 1/301/1,000sec, used M flash synchronisation and added slip- on optical viewfinders to suit 28mm, 35mm, 45mm, 50mm, 85mm, 90mm, 100mm and 135mm focal length lenses. A separate accessory was also available to fit on top of the periscope, magnifying the image slightly and also turning it through 90° so that the camera could be held at eye-level, rather than having to look down into the periscope, 90° degrees to the subject.
Each camera was sold with a gold- embossed medal-like guarantee tag attached. The price was £19 19s 6d (approximately £19.97) for the body only or £32 19s 3d (approximately £32.96) with the f/3.5 Lumar lens. The prices compared favourably with the then current Reid at £120 or Wrayflex at £90. The way the Periflex evolved became one of photography’s more unusual, not to say eccentric, 35mm designs. Nevertheless, the camera, and its several successors, enjoyed a deserved success throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.