Of What Was the KMT a Prototype? - Text 4
The KMT was noisy, it had no reflex viewfinder and no special mechanism to facilitate synchronous shooting. There was nothing surprising in this: the KMT was an adaptation of a military camera, the KMO, designed for the body of a camera for industrial use by Éclair, the GV 16. This film-gun, intended to be installed in the wings of airplanes to take a photograph with each bullet impact, did not need to be silent. Designed to be synchronized with a machine gun, it has no reflex viewfinder. To make it serviceable for filmmakers, Coutant adapted a 120-metre magazine to the body of the camera for long, uninterrupted shots, and equipped this blind camera with a Pan Cinor lens. In this optical system, the viewfinder is incorporated in the lens, making it possible to frame as precisely as with a reflex viewfinder; the reflex viewfinder’s prism system, however, which can be installed on any camera, reduces the quantity of light. The magazine Coutant adapted has vertical supply and uptake spools. It is large and partially obstructs the operator’s view, whereas the principle of the co-axial magazine used for the Éclair 16 makes the camera very compact on the operator’s shoulder. The KMT is smaller and lighter (3.5 kilograms according to Michel Brault) than the Éclair 16 (whose body weighs 6 kg), because the Éclair has a reflex viewfinder (and thus a shutter with a rotating mirror).
