This is a KW Pilot, a folding twin lens reflex camera produced by Kamera Werkstätten Guthe & Thorsch in Dresden, Germany between 1931 and 1937. The Pilot was the first and only folding TLR to shoot 3cm x 4cm images on 127 format roll film. The Pilot, like all KW…
It’s been two years since the photography world lost one of it’s most important photographers. David Douglas Duncan, then 102 years old, passed away peacefully on July 7, 2018 with his wife by his side. Duncan was a life long photographer who later became good friends with Pablo Picasso, photographing…
This is a Canonet G-III QL17 fixed lens 35mm rangefinder camera. It was the last in a line of successful Canonet rangefinder cameras starting with the original Canonet from 1961. This model was made between 1972 and the summer of 1982 and sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. The G-III in…
This is a Flexaret VII Twin Lens Reflex camera made between the years 1966 – 71 by Meopta, a camera company based out of the former Czechoslovakia. The Flexaret VII was the very last, and most advanced, in a line of TLRs dating back to the Kamarad Mk II from 1937.…
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…
