Erich Kästner (designer)

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Erich Kurt Kästner (born April 5, 1911 in Jena ; † January 31, 2005 in Penzberg ) was a German designer for film cameras.

Life

Kästner was chief designer at ARRI camera development in Munich for over 50 years . In cooperation with the company's founder August Arnold, he was involved in the development of the first series-produced film camera from Arnold & Richter and thus wrote a piece of technology and film history. The cameraman and collector Gerhard Fromm writes:

"Dr. Arnold Fanck had a 35 mm film camera converted back in 1926 using a beam splitter mirror so that he could use long focal lengths for his ski and mountain films. Various inventors had already filed patent claims for reflex cameras, but none of them had succeeded in making them practical.

At the Arnold & Richter company in Munich, the young chief designer Erich Kästner also dealt with this topic. Several attempts ended in deep disappointment. Kästner put the idea on hold several times, but he never let go of it, and so he kept working on improvements and was able to complete the first prototype in 1936, which was used at the Olympic Games in Berlin . The response was encouraging, and a year later a copy that was ready for production was sent to the trade fair in Leipzig. Against the slogan “first single-lens reflex film camera in the world”, Dr. Fanck, understandably, immediately objected, but one could agree: The advertising slogan was modified somewhat, and Dr. Fanck got the Arriflex, No. 506 (the series had started with 500). The biggest problem that Kästner had to solve was the synchronization of the mirror shutter. In order to avoid an imbalance from the outset , a two-wing panel was designed that runs with a reduction of 1 to 2 to the gripper axis. All problems seemed already solved when the first tests with a mirror-polished steel bezel were successful. The disappointment was all the more severe when it turned out that the focus was shifting due to temperature fluctuations. Only the ingenious idea of ​​grinding a surface silver-plated glass panel brought the solution. "

In 1913, the German Reich Patent No. 275,404 was issued to Anton Aretz, Stuttgart, which protected a SLR viewfinder for film cameras.

Kästner died at the age of 93 in Penzberg, Upper Bavaria, and was buried in Rosenheim on February 9, 2005 .

Honors

He is a three-time Oscar winner (1973, 1982, 1992) and received the Bavarian Film Prize in 1994 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1444510457906  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Erich Kaestner Win indicated by an asterisk@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / awardsdatabase.oscars.org  
personal data
SURNAME Kaestner, Erich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kästner, Erich Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German designer
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Jena
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 2005
Place of death Penzberg