The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bellows \Bel"lows\, n. sing. & pl. [OE. bely, below, belly, bellows, AS. b[ae]lg, b[ae]lig, bag, bellows, belly. Bellows is prop. a pl. and the orig. sense is bag. See Belly.] An instrument, utensil, or machine, which, by alternate expansion and contraction, or by rise and fall of the top, draws in air through a valve and expels it through a tube for various purposes, as blowing fires, ventilating mines, or filling the pipes of an organ with wind.
Bellows camera, in photography, a form of camera, which can be drawn out like an accordion or bellows.
Hydrostatic bellows. See Hydrostatic.
A pair of bellows, the ordinary household instrument for blowing fires, consisting of two nearly heart-shaped boards with handles, connected by leather, and having a valve and tube.
Camera \Cam"e*ra\, n.; pl. E. Cameras, L. Camerae. [L. vault, arch, LL., chamber. See Chamber.] A chamber, or instrument having a chamber. Specifically: The camera obscura when used in photography. See Camera, and Camera obscura.
Bellows camera. See under Bellows.
In camera (Law), in a judge's chamber, that is, privately; as, a judge hears testimony which is not fit for the open court in camera.
Panoramic camera, or Pantascopic camera, a photographic
camera in which the lens and sensitized plate revolve so
as to expose adjacent parts of the plate successively to
the light, which reaches it through a narrow vertical
slit; -- used in photographing broad landscapes.
--Abney.
Usage examples of "bellows camera".
About ten feet from Laurie and me, the photographer who would freeze this moment watched his composition move into being from behind a tripod and a bellows camera the size of an orange crate.
It was taken by Mary Kathleen, with my bellows camera, on the morning after we first heard Whistler speak.