Throughout my life taking pictures, and later collecting cameras, one thing I took for granted was the fact that instant film exists. As a kid growing up in the 80s, everyone had a Polaroid camera. I didn’t know how it worked. All I knew was that you could go to…
This is a Royer Teleroy, a medium format folding camera made in France by Société Industrielle de Technique Optique, or SITO for short, starting in 1950. The Teleroy featured a coupled rangefinder and shoots both 6cm x 9cm and 4.5cm x 6cm images on 120 or 620 roll film. This…
In the film world, there’s a general grouping of large format, medium format, 35mm, and subminiature film. In every category besides 35mm, there’s a variety of shapes and sizes of film. Large format can come in any size from huge 24×20 images all the way down to 5×7 sheets. Medium…
This is a Leotax Model K, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Shōwa Kōgaku Seiki K.K. between 1955 and 1958. The Model K was the economy model in the Leotax series, sold with a slower f/3.5 Topcor lens and omitting all slow speeds and the top 1/1000 shutter speed found…
Ask a photo historian to give you the name of a photographer most commonly associated with the American Civil War, and the name Mathew Brady will likely come up every single time. The timing of the war between 1861 to 1865 was ideal from a photographic standpoint as it was…
This is a Rollei 35 T, a premium 35mm scale focus camera, built by Rollei-Werke Franke & Heidecke in Singapore starting in 1974. The Rollei 35 T was a later evolution of the original Rollei 35 which was first introduced in November 1966. When it was released, the Rollei 35…
This is a Canon 7, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Canon starting in September 1961. The Canon 7 would be the last new model to use the Leica Thread Mount which they had been using since the release of the Canon S-II in 1946. Canon took a big risk…
This is the Rectaflex, a 35mm SLR built in Rome, Italy between the years of 1948 to 1958. It was designed by a Roman lawyer named Telemaco Corsi and was the very first 35mm SLR to feature a pentaprism viewfinder, narrowly beating out the Zeiss-Ikon Contax S as the first…
As the first month of 2021 nears it’s end, I thought I’d check in with you all to let you know that I am still alive and well, and that in only five more days I will resume my normal cadence of weekly reviews and other articles. Perhaps you’ve noticed…
Mistakes were made. Pulling back the curtains here , I can imagine at least a few readers of this site believe there is a vault filled with a never-ending supply of mint condition, perfectly working cameras, glistening under hi-powered LED lights, much like how you might see fine works of…
This review is part of the Cameras of the Dead series which I have been publishing every year on Halloween and “Halfway to” Halloween, featuring three cameras that I’ve wanted to review that either didn’t work, or was otherwise unable to shoot. Last year, I republished individual versions of each…
This review is part of the Cameras of the Dead series which I have been publishing every year on Halloween and “Halfway to” Halloween, featuring three cameras that I’ve wanted to review that either didn’t work, or was otherwise unable to shoot. Last year, I republished individual versions of each…
