If you’re a frequent reader of this site, I have to imagine that you likely have a passing interest in the history of the stories behind the cameras I write about, after all, it is usually a major part of most posts here. I’ve always been fascinated with history. In…
GAS… Or for those of you non-collector types out there, “Gear Acquisition Syndrome”, is something that doesn’t just apply to camera collectors, but any group of people who drool over ‘gear’ and want to acquire it. The concept of GAS certainly isn’t new as trade shows, magazines, fan clubs, and…
For as long as people have been on this planet, we have been looking at the skies, and for as long as people have had access to cameras, we have been trying to take photographs of it. Every year there is some celestial event such as the recent Perseid Meteor…
Growing up in the 1980s, the View-Master stereo viewer with it’s iconic red plastic shell and round paper discs were a common sight for me and pretty much everyone I knew. Pre-loaded discs with 3D images were available of everything from far away cities to scenes from Star Wars movies. …
Summer is here, and that means a lot of things to a lot of people. Outdoor barbecues, swimming, camping, family vacations, and one of my favorites…auto racing! I love photography, but it is not my only interest. In my 20s, I used to be an avid gear head, modifying and…
This week’s Keppler’s Vault is a “two-fer” offering two separate articles about the 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera, one from August 1957 and the other from February 1960. In the first article, Herbert Keppler and Arthur Kramer take a look at the state of Prism Reflexes and in the second,…
I am no stranger to the Meopta Flexaret TLR series, as my review for the Flexaret VII was one of the first reviews on this site back in 2015. Meopta was a highly respected optics company which made a variety of 35mm and medium format cameras in the 50s, 60s,…
This is the third and final part of a 48 page article about the Japanese Photo Industry which originally appeared as special section of the April 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The second part of this series can be read here. Unlike the first two parts of this Japanese…
This is the second part of a 48 page article about the Japanese Photo Industry which originally appeared in as special section of the April 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The first part of this series can be read here. In this section, there are even more fascinating stories…
I was born in 1978, and for my whole life, Japanese products were always good. Cameras, televisions, stereos, watches, video game consoles, cars, and a huge number of other consumer products proudly proclaimed to be “Made in Japan”. This wasn’t always so. As recently as the late 1800s, Japan was…
Each time I pick up a classic camera, I am awestruck at the craftsmanship and build quality that these old devices have. Cameras from the early to middle of the 20th century were created by craftsmen (and women) who paid close attention to the various gears, levers, dials, and switches…
The Argus C3 is one of those cameras that for American collectors is one you could accidentally collect. I cannot tell you how many Argus C3s (and their variants like the Matchmatic) I’ve picked up in job lots of cameras where I wanted something else. I’ve seen them at antique…
