Ilford Sporti

From Camerapedia.org

The Sporti series cameras were made by Dacora in Germany, for Ilford from around 1959. There were 120 film versions, taking 6x6cm images on 120 film, and a 127 film model - Sporti 4.

Contents 1 Sporti 2 Sporti 4 3 Sporti 6 4 Links

Sporti

The 120 film Sporti was metal-framed, with a little plastic used in the lens barrel; later versions seem to have had a plastic winding knob in place of the metal one. The back was hinged, and had a central red window. The Sporti was almost identical to the Dacora Digna 1. The shutter speed was fixed, with flash synch, and a cable release socket in the release button. The cable release socket was dropped on the later models. The shutter release - beside the lens barrel - was pressed inwards to shoot. There were two apertures - "Sunny" and "Cloudy/Flash", selected by a switch on top of the lens barrel. The lens focused from 5ft - infinity, marked into "CLOSE-UPS", "GROUPS" and "VIEWS" zones.

Sporti 4

The Sporti 4 was introduced in 1960 and took 4x4cm images on 127 film. The body was mostly plastic, with a metal cap around the lens barrel - and had slightly cleaner lines than the original Sporti. It had a fixed-focus lens with "Sunny" and "Cloudy" apertures, and a single-speed shutter with flash synch. The release now operates vertically.

Sporti 6

In 1963, the Sporti 6 was introduced with an updated look, lever wind, a two-speed shutter (1/50 & 1/100) and a choice of three apertures, f8,f11,f16. The body was plastic, with a metal face plate around the viewfinder and lens barrel. The entire back and base were removable as a unit for film loading; the base having a hole through it for the tripod bush, which was mounted in the body. Beside the viewfinder was a panel suggesting a light meter, but which actually just contained the Ilford nameplate and a red indicator when winding was required. The shutter would not fire until the film was wound, thus preventing double-exposures. The lens focused from 5ft/1.5m to infinity, with similar zones to the Sporti, except that the "6" has symbols in place of words.

The flash synch PC socket was behind the speed selector ring, which had a cut-out which lined up with the socket when set to the flash sync speed of 1/50, thus ensuring the correct speed was selected when the flash was connected.

Compared to the original Sporti,the "6" was much lighter and about 1cm shorter in height.

Links

• Sporti, Sporti 4 and Sporti 6 at Maurice Fisher's
• Sporti 4 at onetwoseven.org [1]
• Sporti 4 instruction manual on Maurice Fisher's site
• Sporti 6 instruction manual on Maurice Fisher's site