Tobacco products are manufactured by an automatic machine presenting a number of working parts, certain of which consisting in rollers rotatable about mutually parallel axes and carried by a substantially vertical bulkhead of the machine frame, equipped with a protective casing rendered capable of movement by means of a parallelogram linkage between a raised position, clear of the bulkhead, and a lowered position shielding the bulkhead. A horizontal beam associated permanently with the casing carries an upright member serving to support a camera-and-strobe-light assembly; piloted by a master controller, the upright member is traversed along the beam by one motor, and the camera-and-strobe-light assembly along the upright member by another motor, so that the camera can be positioned at any given point on the bulkhead to examine all the working parts.