Military Camera OMI-Nistri mod. APR-87A, Italian Royal Air Force, circa 1940

Military camera for aerial shots made by OMI - Nistri - Rome to be used on board reconnaissance aircraft, land bombers, torpedo bombers etc. belonging to the Italian Royal Air Force. The structure is in die-cast light alloy (Duralluminium or Dural) with a truncated pyramid shape, with a wooden side handle and leather strap for transport. The camera called OMI-APR-87A could be used with 6.5 x 9 cm film, contained in a roll back and curtain shutter, with an Aerostigmat 135 mm f3.5 lens produced by Officine Galileo Firenze.

The method of use of this device was relatively simple, it was held in the operator's hand through the wooden handle, he loaded the frame by turning the appropriate knob located on the right of the camera body, adjusted the opening of the diaphragm and he inserted, if necessary, the yellow filter in the presence of fog or clouds, framed the subject through the folding Newtonian viewfinder and finally pressed the shutter button.

This photographic device was used for taking aerial photographs or for filming in flight and was used freely by hand by a member of the aircraft crew.

There is its wooden case in which it was stored after use, all in excellent condition.

Some historical news:

The needs of taking aerial photographs were initially of a military nature and there were numerous photographic devices supplied to American and English airmen during the Second World War. Another sector in which photogrammetry developed was that of topographical surveys: in 1851 the Captain of the French Engineers Laussedat began to study the way to replace hand-drawn perspectives with photographs and in 1858 he created the first photogrammetric machine composed of a camera combined with a collimator telescope.

Oblique cameras for aerial use, used freehand, arise from the adaptation of terrestrial cameras to flight needs. The actual aerophogrammetry devices, intended for vertical recordings, were installed in a fixed position on the aircraft. These devices often lack almost all the elements that make a camera recognizable as such (viewfinder, shutter button, shutter speed control) and the shape and dimensions, no longer subject to ergonomics, are functional to the internal parts. They have remote electrical controls and can often have more than one lens.

Starting from the early 1900s, armies used observers on balloons to guide artillery fire. During the First World War, aerial reconnaissance was fundamental for the tactics of the armies and during the Second World War it became systematic and of fundamental support for the planning of bombing missions and for the evaluation of the effects. Meanwhile, between the two wars, the use of aerial photographs for the creation of topographic maps developed. In the 1920s and 1930s, aerial photography also performed celebratory and propaganda tasks. Today, the advent of satellite imagery has made the use of aerial photography for military or topographical purposes obsolete.

History of Omi-Nistri:

The Omi-Nistri Roma Ottica Meccanica Italiana company of the Nistri brothers based in Rome began its activity during the First World War and specialized in the construction of photographic equipment for the Air Force to be used in aerial reconnaissance (planimetric and perspective equipment) and in shooting schools (photo machine guns).

The anonymous company Ottico Meccanica Italiana e Rilevamenti Aerofotogrammetrici was founded as early as 1924, but it was only in 1937-38 that its headquarters were built in the San Paolo area for the production of precision optical instruments for the Air Force.

Around 1938, OMI established itself on international markets for the export of aeronautical material and in the years of the Second World War, the company took on strategic importance, given its mainly military production. At the end of the Second World War, OMI, like other Italian industries producing military equipment, found itself in the position of having to forcibly change its reference market.