It is easy to dismiss the Compass as an eccentric camera designed by an eccentric inventor. It was, though, a genuine attempt to provide a precision miniature camera with many built-in features. It also introduced a method of making exposure setting easier by linking light conditions, shutter speed, aperture, film speed and filter factors together using the Compass Unit.

The camera was designed by Noel Pemberton Billing and manufactured by Le Coultre & Cie in Switzerland. Either plates or cut-film were available these are held in light-tight paper envelopes having a draw slide similar to a single metal slide. A roll-film back was produced for 6 exposures on daylight loading spools. Several companies produced Compass film including colour.

Built-in features included:
Rangefinder, direct and right-angle view-finder, extinction meter, spirit level, lens hood, lens cap with depth-of-field scale, filters, focusing screen and magnifier with eyesight correction, stereoscopic head, panoramic setting.

Separate accessories included:
Cable release adapter, tripod, roll-film back, neck chain and a photograph album.

The price of the camera was £30, roll-film back £5 and tripod £2.

World War II put an end to the Compass. The company moved out of London to Kingston. Planned accessories such as an enlarger (subject of a patent) and a printer did not materialise. A developing outfit was produced by R. Clifton of Kingston-on-Thames. A roll-film back for 828 size roll-film was made by T. A. Cubit, but this is of very poor finish compared to Le Coultre products.

Noel Pemberton-Billing (1881 - 1948) fought in the Boer war and in the Royal Navy during World War I. He started an aircraft company in 1913, sold in 1916, which later went on to produce the Supermarine Spitfire. He was the MP for East Herts.

The letter with this example lists the Directors of Compass Cameras as N. Pemberton Billing, F. de Tchinatchef, R. de B. Troughton, also listed but crossed through is Sir Birtram H. Jones.

Compass Units (CU)

The exposure meter gives a reading in CU, this single value is set on the shutter dial. The exposure was then correct for a plate of normal speed used with the fastest aperture. If a smaller aperture is required it is set on a dial on the face pate of the camera, a window then shows the CU value of the aperture (0, 2, 4, 8), this is added to the CU value given by the exposure meter and the result set on the shutter dial. Similarly if a filter is in place a window on the camera front shows the CU value (0, 2, 4), this is added to the meter value. Normal plates and films had a CU value of 0, faster films had a negative value, slow films, such as colour, had a positive CU value.

For example: Meter value 2, Film speed +1, Filter +2, Aperture +4, the shutter dial is set to 9 which equates to a 1/25 second. A Compass Unit was equal to half a stop.

Models

The Compass I had a removable lens cap, no cable release fitting (the bayonet surrounding the shutter release) and no magnifier to the focusing screen. Very few could have been sold and Compass Cameras Ltd offered to replace them with the new model II when it appeared. Early illustrations show a model I with a hinged lens cap, this may have been an intermediate model or a hybrid. Later adverts from 1937 show a normal model II. Serial numbers probably started at 1001 indicating that only 4000 in total were produced.

There are some variations of the model II: the lens is shown in photographs to be a CCL 3 later it is called a CCL 3B. The C of Compass on some models has a shadow around it, these seem to be slightly rarer and tend to be in the 2000 band of serial numbers. Different language versions exist, the focusing index sometimes has the word 'DIST' others have 'Focal Distance' or 'Distance', the tab opposite the distance index may carry a country code, e.g. C.H. C.S. F. U.S.

A note pasted into the "How to Take Snap-Shots with the Compass Camera I" booklet explains that some models of the Compass have different labels against the lens stops. These are: D was previously labelled Overcast; O was previously labelled Clear; C was previously labelled Bright; B was previously labelled D.L.O (Dazzling Light Only). The booklet itself used the older labels.

There are two distinct models of the roll-film back. On the earlier there is no lock to prevent the spool release button from being pressed when attached to the camera and there is only one arrow engraved next to the film advance knob.
The improved model has a safety cover and a lock inside the back prevents the release button from being pressed when attached to the camera. A second arrow surrounds the advance knob.

Some versions of the outfit case have a compartment in the lid. A few flat, attache style, cases exist possibly for presentation purposes.

Camera Patents

• GB423035. Photographic cameras; exposure meters; developing-apparatus. July 18, 1933, Describes the general form of the Compass.
• GB423226. Photographic lens fittings and mounts. July 18, 1933. Describes a lens mount "comprising of front and rear lens components carried by superimposed plates or discs having in their faces circular recesses, eccentric to the optical axis of the lens, in which are mounted rotary discs which lie between the lens components, and carry colour filters, stops, or extension lenses. A shutter may also be similarly mounted between the lens components".
• GB428003. Stand heads. Nov. 3, 1933. Describes panoramic heads and tripod fittings.
• GB428455. Photographic shutters. Nov. 3, 1933, Describes the Compass shutter.
• GB428515. Developing - apparatus. Nov. 3, 1933. Describes developing apparatus.
• GB428516. Photographic contact or projection printing-apparatus. Nov. 3, 1933. Describes a printer.
• GB445611. Photographic-film holders. Oct. 15, 1934 Describes a carrier for photographic films.
• GB447901. Photographic roll-film cameras. Describes a roll-film camera.
• GB452013. Photographic-film holders. Feb. 13, 1935, Describes a holder for photographic sensitive material having a support of celluloid, paper, or other thin flexible material.
• GB463943. Photographic roll-film cameras. Sept. 4, 1935. Describes a roll-film back.
• GB465102. Photographic cameras. July 16, 1936. Describes a camera back similar to the Compass.
• GB467837. Photographic roll-film spools. Dec. 23, 1935.
• GB478342. Photographic cameras. May 16, 1936. "The scale indications on the shutter mechanism, the exposure meter and the diaphragm stops of a photographic camera are formed by or obtained from the terms of geometrical progression so that a simple calculation determines the correct shutter setting for any particular exposure meter scale reading. The camera comprises a casing and telescopic sections". The patent goes on to describe the two discs, one carrying diaphragm apertures, the other carrying colour filters.
• GB480108. Photographic film carriers. Aug. 13, 1936. Carriers for photographic sensitised material of the type comprising inner and outer envelopes separable for exposure, such as described in Specifications 445,611 and 452,013, one of the envelopes carries a flexible tongue which slides in a slot on the other envelope when separated for exposure.
• GB489557. Collapsible cameras. Jan. 28, 1937. Not directly related to the Compass.

The address given on most of the patent applications is London Laboratories, 6 Lower Regent St. S.W.1.