There are certain places in the world known for the manufacture of photographic equipment. Wetzlar, Germany. Rochester, New York. Perhaps even Ann Arbor, MI. But Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Yet, during the 1940s and 50s, Minneapolis was home to the Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company. A firm which only ever made one camera, the Clarus MS-35.
History
The 1930s was an era for the development of precision miniature cameras. Kodak's introduction of the daylight loading 135 film cartridge in 1934 and the popularity of German made Leica and Contax cameras prompted multiple American companies to introduce their own offerings and hopefully capitalize on a lucrative emerging market. Previously, I talked about the Perfex Fifty-Five, another camera that emerged as a result of this.
The story of Clarus began in 1939, when International Photographic Industries, Inc. of Chicago announced the model MS-35. The camera had been designed by Paul Mann, who was a primary financier of the company, and had not designed a camera before this, nor would he after.
The announced camera would be very similar in design and appearance to that which was ultimately produced, although perhaps more ambitious. The camera would feature either an f/3.5 or f/2.8 uncoated lens produced by Busch Precision Camera Corporation in a collapsible focusing mount. It would have a focal plane curtain shutter with speeds up to 1/1000th of a second. It would have a split image rangefinder and separate optical viewfinder with parallax compensation. Other features included automatic film transport and frame counter, accessory shoe and a range of interchangeable accessory lenses. Date of release was announced as May 1940.
However, economic challenges and the Second World War delayed the project, and the company went under with no cameras made or sold.
In 1946, the Clarus re-emerged, this time under the charge of the Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company located at 1554 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Their factory, if it could be called such, occupied the second floor of a two story building, the first floor being an unaffiliated drug store. The building still stands at this location, although today it is occupied by a Spanish speaking preschool.
The Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company was owned by Paul Mann, Nate Owen and the law firm of Robbins, Lyons and Davis. Paul Mann brought the design of the MS-35 and the tooling for it which had been made before the war. Nate Owen set up and managed the factory in their second floor flat, and financial support for the operation was secured by Robbins, Lyons and Davis.
The company had been in preparation as soon as the war ended, and by 1946, they had cameras in production and ready for sale. In order to capitalize on the pent up demand for consumer products created by the lack of civilian manufacturing during the war, and the lack of importation of foreign goods, an advertising blitz campaign was started. Large, prominent advertisements were taken out in publications such as Popular Photography, Popular Mechanics and Minicam Photography which sang the camera's praises. (The latter magazine would become Modern Photography in 1949.)
The main selling point of the Clarus was its price. At a cost of $120 with the standard Wollensak Velostigmat f/2.8 lens, it was certainly not a cheap camera for the time. However, it was nearly half the cost as compared to a Leica with a similar, advertised, feature set.
A range of accessories was also offered with the MS-35. Early cameras had no flash synchronization, but this was quickly fitted and an accessory flashholder (which interestingly hung from the bottom of the camera) was made available. Unlike a number of other American rangefinder cameras, a range of accessory lenses were actually produced as well, rather than existing only on paper.
A wide angle Wollensak 35mm f/3.5 lens was offered, as were two telephoto lenses, a 4" Elgeet f/4.5 and a 101mm f/3.5 Wollensak. The star lens though was the Wollensak 2" (50mm) Raptar f/2.0. Rather than the simple triplet Velostigmat, the Raptar was a fast, sharp, six element double gauss design.
As a result of pent up consumer demand and the effective advertising campaign, orders for the Clarus MS-35 began rolling in and cameras were being manufactured and sent out. All was well.
Soon after the first examples went out, problems began. Cameras were not performing as designed and angry people were demanding their money back. The main complaints included latches failing resulting in the back of the camera popping open and ruining the film, shutters which were not firing or were providing inaccurate speeds, film transport issues and the range and viewfinder windows falling out.
As a result of these complaints, the camera went through a series of incremental redesigns with parts being changed out without changing the overall design. By 1949, it seemed that all the bugs had been worked out. But by this point, three years after the camera's release, the damage had been done and the reputation of the MS-35 and the Clarus company had been irreparably damaged. Additionally, manufacturing had resumed in Europe, making available imports of Leicas and Contaxes once more, ending the small window when American manufacturers had control of the market.
Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company was never in great financial shape. The company was never able to get long term financing, so it was always short term, payable on demand loans from their creditors which kept the company afloat. In addition to this, the constant redesigns and cameras returned for repair and replacement prevented the company from accumulating any substantial financial reserves. By late 1950, the company was six weeks behind on paying its employee's salaries, had only a small stock of cameras and a few replacement parts, and was in debt to the Internal Revenue Service for not paying taxes which had been accumulated from employees income withholdings.
In 1952, the company finally became insolvent, and the assets were sold to La Belle Industries, a producer of slide projectors based out of Chicago, IL. La Belle marketed the MS-35 under the name "Wescon" but had no more success than Clarus had originally and discontinued the sale of cameras soon thereafter, thus ending the story of the Clarus MS-35.
Matthew Broms, who was the last general manager of the Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company, was later interviewed and described Clarus as "A magnificent opportunity for great success slipping through the fingers of a group of grossly inexperienced, poorly financed people, saddled with a camera whose basic design was a complete failure - in the beginning."
Overview
The Clarus MS-35 is a 35mm rangefinder camera producing images 24 x 36mm on 135 film. It measures 6 1/8" x 3 1/8" x 2 3/4" (156 x 79 x 70mm) and weighs in at 1 lb 11.5 oz. (780 grams) with the lens attached.
Early examples have different features as compared to the main production variant, but intermixing of features is often found. Early cameras have different checkering on the knobs, a shorter shutter speed dial with a tapered base, a different shutter button collar, strap lugs, press fit frames to retain the viewfinder and rangefinder windows, and a sliding catch for the back cover. It is also marked "Made in U.S.A" under the name.
My example represents the style most often encountered.
The body of the Clarus MS-35 is composed entirely of die castings in order to minimize machining time and cost. As a result of this, the camera is quite dense. The metal surfaces are finished in brushed chrome, which wasn't of the highest quality, and is often found bubbling or peeling as my example has in some places.
The rest of the body is finished in "War Proven Redolite" which is an artificial leather material. In defense of this, the Redolite on my example shows no wear and is aggressively textured making it very grippy.
The MS-35 uses a proprietary non-rotating screw mount 1 5/8" (41.27mm) in diameter.
Coupling between the lens to the rangefinder is accomplished by a very simple "L" shaped coupling arm. One end of the bar is pushed by the rear of the lens mount when it focuses back and forth, which makes the bar pivot. The other end of the bar is attached to one of the rangefinder mirrors. This actually works very well, and my rangefinder needed no adjustment to be accurate.
Because the mount is non-rotating, Clarus lenses rotate on their mount when focused, which means the aperture scale is marked in multiple locations so it is always visible when the lens body turns.
The focusing scale is located at the rear of the lens body, and on Clarus lenses it is important to note that they do focus past infinity, meaning you can't focus the lens all the way back to shoot at distant subjects, and you do need to use the rangefinder or focusing scale. The marker for the distance scale is a cut made in the focusing ring, shown below focused past infinity.
The standard lens encountered is the Wollensak 2 inch (50mm) f/2.8 Velostigmat. This is a simple lens composed of three air spaced elements and is hard coated on all surfaces. Apertures range from f/2.8 to f/22 and it can focus down to 3.5 feet.
Most of the controls of this camera are found on the top plate. From left to right we have the film rewind knob and then the accessory cold shoe. Interestingly, rather than being one piece, the shoe is made from two more decorative castings.
In the middle we have a cover plate near the front which allows adjustments to be made to the rangefinder. Behind it is a pin jack connection for flash synchronization. A single wire would be inserted here from the flashholder, which hung from the bottom of the camera. The circuit was completed through the camera body.
On the right side of the camera we have a rather tightly spaced cluster of controls.
The shutter speed dial is a "lift to set" type. The knob is lifted up and then dropped into a slot which corresponds with the triangle cut lining up with one of the shutter speeds marked around the circumference. The shutter speed can be set at any time, but it will only line up properly when the shutter is wound. The MS-35 uses a horizontally traveling, cloth focal plane shutter, which offers speeds of Bulb, and 1/25th to 1/1000th of a second. There are no slow speeds.
On the right side of the camera is the film advance knob, which has the exposure counter dial on its outer edge. The exposure counter dial is retained by friction, so it can be rotated it to reset it by holding the winding knob and rotating the dial at the bottom until the marks line up with the black dot at the 11 o'clock position. It takes just a bit less than one revolution to advance the film and wind the shutter. The act of winding requires more force than you would expect and is rather gritty. It also makes an unpleasant grinding noise when winding, despite the camera's mechanism being thoroughly cleaned and lubricated.
Between the shutter speed and film advance knobs sits the shutter release near the back of the camera body. Let me tell you, this is my least favorite aspect of this camera. In addition to being located at the rear of this very fat body, the shutter button is heavily shielded by a protective cone around it. This means that to press the shutter button, you have to crane your index finder up, back and over, then down at a sharp angle in order to press the button down all the way into its recess. The release is long and gritty in feel, and not conducive to preventing camera shake.
The reason the shutter release is so bad, is due to how the camera is designed. I took some photos inside the top cover when I was giving this camera a CLA.
The inner workings of the camera are made mostly of cast brass gears which are machined, but not to the highest standard of quality. Machining marks are still present.
The shutter is actually released by knocking the middle large gear out of alignment with the other two. So, the travel of the shutter release is long and you have to fight the gears being under spring tension as you un-mesh the gear teeth.
In an attempt to make the shutter release better I added a soft release to the shutter button since it is threaded, however, on the Clarus this is also an effort in frustration. The shutter button is pressed into the top cover, but it can freely rotate 360 degrees. So, despite it being threaded you really can't thread a cable or soft release into the shutter button, since it will freely turn while you are trying to tighten it. In the end, I ended up threading the soft release into the shutter button by holding it from the inside with a pair of pliers while I had the top cover off. This is wholly impractical from a consumer perspective though.
Also, the Clarus MS-35 has no film rewind button. When the film needs to be rewound, you hold down the shutter button to unlock the film advance. However, the shutter button can only be pressed when the shutter is only fully would or unwound. If you try to get an extra frame on a roll and the roll ends before the shutter is fully wound, you now have no way to rewind the film as the shutter button is locked out.
I created a short video showing the operation of the shutter mechanism.
Moving to the side of the camera, we have the release for the back cover. Push this slide button up slightly and the back will unlock. This was later changed to a rotating latch to prevent the back from opening inadvertently.
On the front of the camera, there are three windows for the rangefinder and viewfinder with the viewfinder window in the center and the rangefinder windows on the outsides. The early examples had the windows retained by pressed in frames which were prone to falling out. The later examples like this one have the windows retained internally by a singular frame riveted inside the top cover.
On the back of the camera, we find only the two rangefinder and viewfinder windows. As compared to the normal convention, the viewfinder is on the left and the rangefinder on the right. They are also spaced rather far apart.
The rangefinder is of the split image type, there is a smaller lower field and larger upper field. When the two fields align, the lens is focused. This is one of the better designed aspects of the camera, and works fine.
The viewfinder image is frankly terrible. It is quite tiny, which isn't atypical for the era. It has no parallax compensation as suggested by the pre-war proposed camera.
I also found it to be abnormally blurry and hard to focus on, which is not an issue I have had with any other example of this type of viewfinder. The glass surfaces were perfectly clean, so it wasn't an issue of haze or dust. All the glass elements are riveted in place too, so if the elements are reversed or misaligned, it came that way from the factory. Internal parts of the camera are also visible inside the viewfinder since there is no separate tube for the optical path.
Opening up the film compartment, the film plane and advance sprockets become visible. The focal plane shutter curtains are also visible through the film gate. The curtains on the Clarus were made of rubberized nylon of good quality, and mine are flexible and show no pinholes.
The film pressure plate is made of brushed steel. The rivets do not protrude, and do not impede film flatness.
Coming to the bottom of the camera, the only other element present is a center mounted 1/4" tripod socket.
My Results
Given the Clarus has a reputation for shutter issues, I was a bit hesitant to take it out shooting. I wanted to give it the best possible chance of working well. Beforehand, I took the effort to give it a full CLA, including removing the curtain bearings and lubricating them and adjusting the shutter curtain tension on a laser shutter speed tester.
In the end, I was quite pleased with the shutter speeds I was able to get. I even got a reliable 1/1000th of a second on the tester.
With a bit of confidence in hand, I loaded up a roll of Ilford FP4+ and went out shooting.
The body of the Clarus is relatively fat and deep, but I really didn't find this bothersome in use.
In general the shutter performed well, but it was not without issues. Speeds of 1/25th to 1/250 were perfect, 1/500th showed a slight bit of fading but was still usable. 1/1000th was a crapshoot. Some shots came out fine:
Some turned out like this:
Further review revealed that the speed at which the shutter button is pressed down affects the release timing of the two shutter curtains and trying to make a slow, deliberate press causes shutter capping while jerking the shutter button allows it to work fine. This has to do with how quickly the gears are un-meshed within the shutter mechanism and seems inherent to the design.
Despite the high speed shutter issues, the results were overall good. The high point of this camera is its lens, as Wollensak was a capable lens maker. As a triplet, the Velostigmat shows good center sharpness, but becomes a bit soft at the edges. When opened up fully to f/2.8 everything gets a bit soft. as below.
I would compare this lens similarly to the Argus Cintar 50mm f/3.5, with a half stop of extra speed.
How should I evaluate the Clarus? Is it, as former Clarus Manager Matthew Broms said, a complete failure?
On the one hand, it can be capable of making satisfactory photographs, and that counts for something.
On the other hand, everything you have to go through to get those photos aggravates you to the point of never wanting to pick up the MS-35 again. The creaky gears, bad shutter release, blurry viewfinder and untrustworthy shutter all contribute to the photographer's pain.
The Clarus does not feel well made. The Clarus does not have any attributes which are exemplary. There is nothing about the Clarus which inspires confidence or makes you want to use the camera again. At best, you can get photos which are technically acceptable, but are nothing special or could not be made with another contemporary camera.
If you are interested in in displaying or experiencing an attempt at the American dream, then perhaps you should pick up a Clarus and have a bit of fun. They can be found for relatively cheap on the usual auction sites. Yet, I would not desire to use one for anything serious where the photos are important. When the results matter, leave the Clarus MS-35 at home.
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