This is the Contarex, a professional grade 35mm SLR camera produced by Zeiss-Ikon starting in 1960. This first generation Contarex earned the nickname “Bullseye” for the large prominent circular exposure meter above the lens. The Contarex was one of the first West German SLRs with a focal plane shutter, and…
For the first 50 editions of my Keppler’s Vault series, I’ve brought to you articles from the late 1940s through the late 1960s from a variety of publications on topics that I thought were interesting enough to share. So with this, the 51st edition of Keppler’s Vault, you might think…
Today marks the 65th Anniversary of the release of Kodak Tri-X black and white film, in 35mm, 120, and 620 roll film formats. Tri-X was a film that at the time of it’s release was one of the fastest black and white emulsions ever made, and allowed photographers to take…
Another Halloween, another Cameras of the Dead article. This year, as I browsed through my ever growing collection of broken cameras, I started to see a pattern. While sure, I have my fair share of broken Japanese, American, and Soviet cameras, but I’m starting to see more and more European…
This is a Ricoh Diacord L, a twin lens reflex medium format camera, made by Riken Optical Industries LTD starting in 1957. The Diacord was the name of the export model and the L suffix indicated that it had an uncoupled selenium light meter for exposure measurement. The Diacord L…
In an age of never-ending comparisons, “which product is best for me”, “should I buy product A over product B”, and “top 10 products to buy for blah blah blah”, consumers are constantly in search for the best of everything. For photographers, gear is often the product to which we…
This is a Voigtländer Ultramatic CS, a 35mm SLR camera made by Voigtländer Braunschweig AG starting in 1965. The Ultramatic CS was the top of the line model in Voigtländer’s leaf shutter SLR lineup, starting with the lower cost Bessamatic. The Ultramatic CS was the first leaf shutter SLR with…
In last week’s Keppler’s Vault, we talked about the concept of a Beam Splitter Reflex in which an SLR viewfinder is designed to use an optical device called a beam splitter that would both pass light through to the film plane and up into the viewfinder without any moving parts. …
This is a Revere Eye-Matic EE 127, a fully automatic rangefinder camera that shoots square 4cm x 4cm images on 127 roll film. It was built by the Revere Camera Company of Chicago, IL, USA starting in 1958. This camera was one of the very first fully automatic “electric eye”…
I love prototypes! The promise of seeing concept models featuring designs or technologies that never came to be is very appealing as it offers a glimpse into what could have been. My recent post about a 53 page booklet from the Eastman Kodak company showed off some prototypes of cameras…
This is a Canon IV Sb 35mm rangefinder camera, produced by the Canon Camera Corporation of Tokyo, Japan starting in December 1952. The IV Sb was the world’s first 35mm camera to support flash sync for both flash bulbs and electronic X-sync through Canon’s proprietary rail mounted flash shoe. It…
Have you ever felt limited while shooting your favorite Mamiya M645, Rolleiflex, or Kodak Medalist by only getting 16, 12, or 8 exposures per roll of 120? What if I told you that there was an exciting new development in film that would allow you to get 32, 24, or…
