The lenses ranged from simple meniscus to rapid rectilinears.

But there was still a mindset that more dedicated photographers, amateurs or professionals, would be better served with plate cameras.

In the meantime, more feature-rich, better-lenses, more convenient roll-film cameras began to emerge, and these eventually dominated photography in the following decades.

The Ikontas of the newly formed Zeiss Ikon were very important in this transformation with regard to medium format photography.

The photographers unit of work was the plate and each one should be exposed according to light condition and subject.

That was the possibility of adding an accelerator, a restrainer or even working each negative locally according to his aesthetic intent.

This development by inspection was far more productive with individual plates.

Photographer usually modeled, made backgrounds, added or eliminated props and accessories.

Many nineteenth-century photographers had a background in painting and drawing, and retouching was a technique considered mostly artistic and part of the photographic process.

The gesture of the photographer, the photographer as an artist, depended on his talent and intervened at all stages.

He directed the click and developed the negative in a very manual fashion.

Like a painter, he retouched it and also intervened in the positive print.

His work depended on knowledge and dexterity that made his art a profession and his profession an art.

This view had a considerable bearing on the continuity of plate films and especially glass plates that persisted in commerce until late in the twentieth century.

Perhaps the same reasons are also behind the current revival of analog photography.

This audience was not so interested in the photographic process itself.

Being able to send the roll to a specialized lab and get their prints ready, was more than enough involvement for the weekend photographer.

The ontological act of photographing, using a tripod, ground glass, black cloth, gleaming brass lenses, all that mise-en-scne followed by the darkroom, were the foundations of the photographers profession, followed also by the dedicated hobbyist.

For the most uncompromising amateur, though it was modern and elegant to photograph, he did not want that to imply a very absorbing dedication there.

Being able to take the camera out of his pocket, take some snapshots, and get back to social life was all that the great majority demanded.

These were the first ones that once dismissed the tripod and the black cloth.

Today, a less observant person may even confuse them with a roll-film camera, but in fact they were boxes in which 12 glass plates, in the quarter-plate format, were usually loaded and could be advanced by an ingenious device.

Super Ikonta Manual