Launched three years before the first Leica, which popularised 35mm film, the Sept also took 35mm, though not in the kind of cassettes that would later become the norm. It is one of the first cameras with a built-in clockwork motor drive. (The very first was a French camera called Le Pascal.)

 

The Sept takes the form of a square-cornered box with the motor, whose high-tension spring is wound by a large key, mounted in a housing on the side. The result is a camera that is extremely heavy for its size of 13.5x7x11cm, including the motor box, weighing in at 1.8 kilograms.

 

The camera was originally known as the Photo Cine Sept because it was a still camera and short-run movie camera combined. Popular with newsreel photographers of the 1920s, who were more used to working with much larger cameras on heavy tripods, it could be operated hand-held to give a 15-second burst of movie action to each loading.

 

With the camera in its still mode, the Sept shoots around 250 pictures, each one 18x24mm half frame size, in a continuous sequence or one at a time, the clockwork motor winding the film automatically after each exposure. The shutter provides instantaneous or time exposures.