Deardorff
Open-knowledge reference entry
L.F. Deardorff & Sons Inc. was a manufacturer of wooden-construction, large-format 4"x5" and larger bellows view camera from 1923 through 1988. They were used by professional photographic studios.
Company history
Laban F. Deardorff repaired cameras for nearly 30 years before building the first 8x10 Deardorff. He had been employed by Rochester Camera Company in Rochester, New York, during the 1890s.
Model history
Almost all Deardorff cameras were made of mahogany.
1923 saw the first model, the V8 (or VO8) built in Chicago. 15 models were built.
1924 V8 – 50 units built
1925 V8 – 175 units built
1926 – the first batch production. Reference to a 5x7 Deardorff
1937 – started nickel plating and changed to mahogany wood.
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This entry incorporates text from “Deardorff” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.