PICTURE POSITION FINDER

• US 3,661,061 A
• Filed: 05/05/1969
• Issued: 05/09/1972
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/1969
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Richard D. Tokarz
• Original Assignee: Richard D. Tokarz
• Inventors: Tokarz, Richard D.
• Application Number:
  US04/821,597
• Time in Patent Office: 1,100 Days
• US Class Current: 396/50
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 17/245 Optical means
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 2217/243 Optical devices
• CPC Class Codes: G03B 29/00 Combinations of cameras, projectors or photographic printing apparatus with non-photographic non-optical apparatus, e.g. clocks or weapons; Cameras having the shape of other objects combinations with flash apparatus G03B15/03

Abstract

A device which shows the up-and-down orientation of a photograph regardless of the camera attitude at the time the picture was taken. A freely rotatable pointer in the camera body is gravity responsive and an image thereof is projected on the film. In another embodiment images are projected on the film of a pair of pointers mounted at right angles to each other to indicate the up-and-down orientation of the photograph whether the camera is rotated in a vertical plane parallel to the film or rotated in a vertical plane normal to the film; a fiber optics system provides means for transmitting images of the pointers to the film where the pointers are mounted exterior to the camera.

Claims

1. In a camera adapted to expose film, having a camera body, a lens and a shutter, the improvement comprising a pair of rotatable unevenly weighted pointers mounted so that rotation thereof generates one surface parallel to the film and one surface normal to the film and further comprising a housing exterior to the camera body;

a light source in the housing synchronized to produce light upon activation of the shutter;

a pair of adjacent fiber optic light guides one end thereof located in the housing and one end thereof located in the camera body proximate the film;

wherein the pointer which generates a surface parallel to the film is mounted on an end of one fiber optic light guide inside the camera body and the pointer which generates a surface normal to the film is mounted on an end of the other fiber optic light guide located in the housing, whereby images of said pointers projected to the film upon activation of the shutter show an up-and-down orientation whether the camera is rotated in a vertical plane parallel to the film or a vertical plane normal to the film.

2. A device for projecting an image on film comprising:

a lens housed in a body, shutter means for admitting light through the lens to the film, a pair of rotatable, unevenly weighted pointers, one of which is mounted inside the body between the lens and the film so that a surface generated by rotation thereof is parallel to the film and the other of which is mounted in a housing exterior to the said body so that a surface generated by rotation thereof is normal to the film and means whereby an image of said pointers is projected onto the film comprising a pair of fiber optic light guides extending from the housing into the body and terminating proximate the film, one of said pointers being rotatably mounted on an end of one fiber optic light guide inside the body and the other pointer being mounted on an end of the other fiber optic light guide in the housing; and

a light source in the housing coordinated to produce light upon activation of the shutter means, whereby light from said source travels through said fiber optic light guides and produces images of said pointers on the film.