Stat camera

A stat camera is a large-format vertical or horizontal stationary camera used to shoot film from camera-ready artwork. This is a large bellows-type camera which consists of the copy-board, bellows and lens, and filmboard. The vertical type can take up relatively little space, while the horizontal fills two rooms; bellows, lens, and copyboard on one side of the wall; filmboard and darkroom on the other. The type of film used is black & white "orthochromatic;" i.e., it is sensitive to all colors except red. Guidelines, or "keylines" are created in light blue which read as white; while anything red or close to a red hue appears as black. The stat camera would be used to shoot color separations (using hue filters for each of the four process colors) and to produce halftone film for printing using a special reticulated gel mask.

This whole manual process of capturing and preparing text and images for print was made obsolete by the advent of digital scanners and desktop publishing.