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With digital cameras, when there is no mirror, an electronic shutter can be used to more or less eliminate any moving mechanical parts. That way, a camera makes little or no noise, making it useful for taking photos in quiet places.

In the film era, an electronic shutter was obviously not an option. Considering the sheer diversity and crazy designs that were around back then, did anyone ever release or create a silent or nearly silent film camera?

Bonus points if the film advance mechanism was very quiet as well!

I realise there were accessories that made shooting in quiet places possible, but this is more about whether there were cameras that were silent/very quiet as sold.

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The original cameras didn't use film at all, so there was no noise from any film advance mechanism. Instead they used materials that were inserted in the back of what we now refer to as view cameras while being protected from exposure to light. Each image required changing out the entire back of the camera and replacing it with another glass plate that had photosensitive materials applied to one side of it.

The "shutter" in those early cameras was often the functional equivalent to a modern lens cap. Since the sensitivity of the materials used was so low as to require several minutes to properly expose a bright, sunny scene the level of precision obtained by removing and replacing a cap over the lens was sufficient.

As photo-sensitive materials improved and shorter exposure times were possible the need for a more precise method of beginning and ending the exposure was needed. Mechanical iris shutters in the lenses were activated by a pneumatic bulb that was squeezed by the photographer. As long as the photographer continued to squeeze the bulb, the shutter remained open. When the photographer released the grip on the bulb and it was allowed to fill with air, the shutter closed. These types of shutters made no more noise than the actuation of modern aperture diaphragms. In fact, in many cases the shutter was an iris that also functioned as the aperture diaphragm. The aperture setting selected by the photographer (or the single setting selected by the camera designer) determined exactly how wide the iris was allowed to open when the bulb was squeezed before it was 'stopped' from opening any wider. The Bulb setting on many modern cameras with focal plane shutters is a reminder of the time when photographers opened and closed the shutters on their cameras by squeezing a pneumatic bulb. So is the term Stop when used in reference to photographic exposure values.

After the invention of film, view cameras remained in use for many years. This is especially true regarding medium and large format cameras that could only accommodate a single film negative at a time. Most of Ansel Adams' work was created using such film based view cameras. By that time the shutter mechanisms, which still resided in the lens for view cameras, were mechanically actuated, usually by means of a spring driven release. This was still much quieter than the later two curtain focal plane shutters used in 35mm cameras such as the earliest SLRs and rangefinder cameras.

Most of the noise associated with 35mm SLR cameras is created by the rapid movement of the mirror, not the actuation of the shutter itself. Many film cameras had methods of locking up the mirror prior to the actuation of the shutter so that the noise created by the mirror cycling could be separated from the time when the photograph was exposed. Since rangefinders have no mirror, their shutters are generally very quiet. The vast majority of both SLR and rangefinder cameras used manual film advance that could be as quiet as a few almost inaudible clicks. The photographer also had the choice of whether to advance the film immediately after exposing it or waiting until a more opportune time when what little noise was created would be less of an intrusion.

In summary, for most of the history of photography cameras were fairly quiet. The generation of SLRs with high frame rates and motor drives to advance film were a fairly late development. Before those developments there was not a huge need for cameras quieter than the norm.

Many of today's upper tier DSLRs have various silent modes that either slow down the mirror so that it is less noisy (at the expense of maximum frame rate) or allow the photographer to separate the timing of the mirror movement and re-cocking of the shutter curtains from the actual moment of exposure.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ It sounds like you are saying that the term "stop" comes from the same time as the term "bulb". In fact, stops used to be pieces of metal that one would have to insert into a disassembled lens. The term was already in use in the 1850s when Waterhouse invented his Waterhouse stops (pieces of metal that could be changed without unscrewing the lens). The bulb-operated shutter didn't come into use until the 1890s. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gabe
    Mar 30, 2015 at 17:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ No, I am saying the term stop was used to describe a mechanical device of varied design that limited how wide or narrow the aperture was allowed to open or close (depending on the design). During the time bulbs were used to open/close an iris shutter, many cameras were also designed so that the width the iris was allowed to open was controlled by mechanical stops. I don't think I said anything close to "This was the first time the term stop was used to describe a mechanical means of controlling aperture*. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Mar 31, 2015 at 1:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ Both terms were used concurrently, even if they did not originate at the same time. And the continued usage of both those terms today are reminders of the camera designs of the 19th century. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Mar 31, 2015 at 1:45
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A metal leaf shutter of an old rangefinder camera has relatively low sound. I have no decibel numbers to show, but I'd estimate the emitted sound to be only one fifth of the sound an SLR camera makes with shutter and mirror slap.

Here is a Youtube video I just recorded and uploaded. Tune up the volume on your speakers.

Shutter sounds of an SLR camera and a leaf shutter camera

Two cameras

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  • \$\begingroup\$ And both of the above are film cameras ;) \$\endgroup\$ Dec 15, 2013 at 19:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ That's quieter, but still pretty loud. The idea with the question was that despite everything, you'd still ultimately need a mechanical shutter, and that would make noise. I'd like to know if there were innovative or interesting solutions to this "problem" in the film era. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 16, 2013 at 7:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ChinmayKanchi - It makes very little sound in real life, but yes, I understand what you are looking for with your question. I know no other totally silent film camera but the "lens cap shutter" version that Michael Clark described in his answer. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 16, 2013 at 15:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ @EsaPaulasto cameras with hydraulic and pneumatic triggers existed (maybe still do) but probably weren't much useful because they're slow and bulky compared to spring loaded ones. Sound proofing and insulation can do wonders as well, is cheaper, more reliable, and yields a pretty quiet camera. Nice for James Bond I guess, not much use in anything but spy movies. \$\endgroup\$
    – jwenting
    Dec 17, 2013 at 7:50
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    \$\begingroup\$ @fennec - the entire question was about film cameras. About silent film cameras. While these are not silent, the purpose of my video was to act as reference for relativeness of "silent" when talking about film cameras. So, what are you talking about digital here? \$\endgroup\$ Jan 21, 2014 at 5:26
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The early "black" Konica Hexar AF had a silent mode that was very good. For complicated reasons Konica disabled it in later versions of the camera. But it was still there in the firmware and could be hacked back into existence.

Plus it had a sweet 35/2. Plus active AF that focused perfectly in complete darkness. They even used IR for the active AF so there wasn't a visible spot.

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The noisiest feature in a film camera is probably the motorised winding (and especially rewinding) mechanism, if present. Obviously older mechanical cameras didn't have this feature, and some cameras that did have it, had the ability to disable or slow the mechanism to reduce noise, e.g. the Nikon F6.

Next noisiest feature is probably the mirror slap in a SLR. I read once that the UN banned photojournalists from using SLRs during General Assembly sessions, and so rangefinders were used there instead. I'm sceptical that this claim is true, but the logic is correct – a rangefinder camera has no mirror.

Autofocus motors make noise of course, but this can easily be disabled by using manual focus.

The shutter itself makes some noise – and leaf shutters are much quieter than focal-plane shutters. My old Rolleiflex TLR (with leaf shutter) makes a barely-audible "fizz" when a photo is taken. It is exceptionally quiet compared to a SLR.

And beyond that there were also housings called "sound blimps" – often used by stills photographers on film sets, where they had to keep quiet. The camera goes inside the sound blimp, which absorbs the noises the camera makes during operation.

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I still have an Olympus XA2 camera somewhere. It had an extremely quiet shutter - not much louder than a pin drop. If I can dig it up I can try to record the sound of the shutter compared to some other sounds (like a pin drop). The film advance (manual/thumb click wheel) was considerably louder than the shutter. See http://mattsclassiccameras.com/olympus_xa2.html

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There was a Canon Rebel model that had a semi transparent mirror, so half the light went to the viewfinder and half could pass to the film, so there was no need to flip the mirror, which is the loudest process on a SLR camera.

On a tween lens camera there is no need to flip any mirror at all, so the cameras were very silent.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Neither the EOS RT, based on the EOS 600/630, nor the EOS-1N RS, the two pellicle mirror models Canon offered in the EOS series, were marketed anywhere as Rebels. The North American/Japan version of the Europe based EOS 600 was the EOS 630. The pellicle mirror version was market as the EOS RT. There were only 25,000 of them manufactured. Only 1/3 of the light went to the viewfinder and 2/3 went to the film plane. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Jan 26, 2021 at 20:32

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