Here at Mike Eckman dot com, I like to ask the tough questions. Questions other camera review sites are unwilling or unable to answer. One day, while listening to some Kid Rock, drinking Budweiser, eating McDonalds, and shooting off fireworks, I thought to myself, “Gee, what was the best American…
This is a Kodak Ektra, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by the Eastman Kodak Corporation between the years 1941 and 1948. It was at the time of it’s release, and still is today, the most advanced and feature rich American made 35mm camera ever built. Designed to compete with German…
The year was 1953, the Eastman Kodak company was on a string of successful cameras produced for the US military, from the Kodak 35 (called PH-324), Kodak Ektra, and Kodak Medalist, and the time had come to create yet another quality compact camera up to military specifications. The Kodak Signet…
This is a Bell & Howell Foton, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by the Bell & Howell Company of Chicago, Illinois. It first went on sale in 1948 as a top of the line American built camera, designed to compete with the best of what Germany had to offer. The…
You press the button, we do the rest. There have been a number of brilliant men and women throughout history that have introduced ideas or products into the marketplace that not only revolutionized a product, but rather a way in which things were done. Nikola Tesla, Orville & Wilbur Wright,…
This is the Kodak Tourist, made by the Eastman Kodak Corporation between the years 1948 and 1951. It is a medium format folding camera that shoots 6cm x 9cm images on 620 roll film. Despite it’s humble appearance, the Tourist series was somewhat of an upscale camera, optionally featuring Kodak’s…
This is a Vokar II, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by the Vokar Corporation from Dexter, Michigan between the years of 1947 and 1948. It was a very ambitious American made rangefinder camera that boasted a lot of value for the money, including an entirely Vokar designed lens and shutter…
This is a Perfex Speed Candid, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by the Candid Camera Corporation out of Chicago, Illinois between the years 1938 and 39. It was Candid’s first ever camera, and the first camera to bear the “Perfex” name, which after this model evolved into a semi-successful family…
It doesn’t take long to be into photography before the name Louis Daguerre comes up as one of the most important pioneer’s in early photography. Daguerre’s contribution was of course the daguerreotype, a revolutionary (for the time) process for making photographs on polished silver plated copper plates. Wikipedia has a…
This is a Sure Shot del Sol made by Canon starting in March 1995. The del Sol was part of Canon’s highly successful Sure Shot series and is notable as being the very first completely solar powered camera. Using a large fold down tandem amorphous solar panel that covers nearly…
Earlier this week, I published a full review of an Alpa Alnea 7 that I had picked up last fall. With that camera came three lenses, a Kern-Switar 50/1.8, an Angenieux telephoto and a Kamerabau-Anstalt-Vaduz Kilfitt-Makro Kilar D 4cm f/2.8 lens. I was immediately drawn to the 2 inch minimum…
This is an Alpa Alnea Model 7 made by Pignons S.A. of Switzerland starting in 1952. It was the 4th and most advanced model of the second generation of Alpa cameras. Featuring both a 45 degree angled reflex viewfinder and a coupled coincident image rangefinder with selectable 50, 90, and…
