This is the Fujica Fujicarex II, a 35mm SLR camera produced by Fuji Photo Optical Co., Ltd. starting in 1963. It uses a Citizen central leaf shutter, and has shutter priority automatic exposure via the selenium exposure meter mounted in front of the prism. Although not a true interchangeable lens…
By now, if you’re in my community of film and camera enthusiasts, you’ve probably already heard that there was a fire at Central Camera in downtown Chicago last night as a result of protests over the death of George Floyd. Owner Don Flesch was interviewed last night by a local…
Last December, this site celebrated it’s 5th anniversary, and to celebrate, I wrote a post saying that when I first started, I never imagined the site would grow as it had. Prior to December 2014, mikeeckman.com was just an outlet for me to share my thoughts on movies, music, and…
This is a Certo Super Dollina II, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Certo Camera Work GMBH Dresden starting in 1950. The Super Dollina II was an update to the pre-war Super Dollina which made it’s debut in 1938. Featuring a coupled split image rangefinder and a unique folding chassis…
For nearly 100 years, one of the most popular black and white film developers remains Kodak D-76. Using the properties of the Elon developing agent, also called Metol, Kodak D-76 is often seen as a universal developer that can be used with nearly every film, no matter how fast, how…
This is an Olympus Trip 35, a 35mm scale focus camera made by Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. between the years 1967 and 1984. The Trip was an extremely popular compact camera and is credited as one of the first truly successful point and shoot cameras, ushering in a new age…
Choosing your favorite camera is not an easy task. Much like parents who have more than one child, picking which one you like better isn’t an easy thing to do. Thankfully, much like parenting, there’s no reason you can’t have two favorite cameras. But this is the Internet and people…
This is a Minolta XE-7, a 35mm SLR camera produced by Minolta Camera Co. between the years 1974 and 1977. The XE-7 was sold exclusively in the United States as it was called the XE and XE-1 in Japan and Europe respectively. The XE-7 was the product of a joint…
For most of the past century, the choice of whether you wanted to shoot photographs in color or black and white has simply been a matter of choosing one film or another, or in the digital era, pressing a button or two to switch back and forth. In the earliest…
This is a Ricoh Hi-Color 35, a 35mm scale focus camera made by Ricoh Co. LTD of Japan starting in 1968. This model was a mid-level variant in a line up of well featured point and shoot cameras with features like a wind up motorized film transport, shutter priority automatic…
You only need to be a camera collector for about five seconds before you discover one of the most frustrating aspects of the hobby. Is it the large number of extinct films that you can no longer get? Is it what do to with all of the “Ever-ready” cases that…
As I’ve done for the past 3 years at the end of April, I release a “Halfway to Halloween” post in my Cameras of the Dead series of 3 cameras that no longer work, but are worthy of mention. Each year, I come up with some cheesy tie in to…
