Nikon is not only one of the most successful camera companies of all time, but they also have one of the most fascinating histories of any modern company, in any industry today. In 2017, Nikon celebrated it’s 100th anniversary with a pretty cool anniversary website (which has since closed) and…
The following article was written by Dr. Jeffrey Alexander as his masters thesis while he was studying at the University of British Columbia in 2001. It originally appeared on the university’s web portal in text format but has since transformed into a PDF only that can be read in the…
Prologue Throughout a large portion of the 20th century, the photographic industry was heavily tied to Germany. In addition to cameras and lenses, Germany was also tied to a whole list of atrocities committed by it’s government and the Nazi regime. This is a topic that is very sensitive to…
David Douglas Duncan passed away on June 7, 2018 at his home in France at the age of 102. One of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, his works have been seen all around the world, most commonly while he worked for LIFE magazine. He photographed the Korean…
I am happy to present to you what I hope will be a continuing series of collaborative posts with life-long photographer and Nikon historian Robert Rotoloni. Robert is an American photographer and graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. He was attracted to photography at a young age, buying…
If your experience with photography is limited to hand held 35mm or roll film cameras made within the last 100 years, you likely have never heard of the Packard shutter. The history of the Packard shutter and how it came to be is shrouded in mystery. There is very little…
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, if you were a photographer, you probably heard of a small Japanese company called the Miranda Camera Corporation. Even if you didn’t own a Miranda camera, you probably remember their ads. Miranda originally started in 1946 as Orion Seiki Sangyō Y.K., (in English, Orion Precision…
For those of you like me who grew up in the 1980s, you remember the Polaroid instant camera. Models like the Spectra and the OneStep were common, shooting instant photographs with Polaroid’s familiar white border. If you are a little older, you might remember the collapsible SX-70, but no matter…
