Nikon and the Sponsorship of Japan’s Optical Industry by the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1917 – 1945

The following article was written by Dr. Jeffrey Alexander as his masters thesis while he was studying at the University of British Columbia in 2001.  It originally appeared on the university’s web portal in text format but has since transformed into a PDF only that can be read in the…

Wehrmacht Leica

Prologue Throughout a large portion of the 20th century, the photographic industry was heavily tied to Germany.  In addition to cameras and lenses, Germany was also tied to a whole list of atrocities committed by it’s government and the Nazi regime. This is a topic that is very sensitive to…

Keppler’s Vault 26: Christmas and Snow Photography

For much of the world, Christmas is a time spent with family, decorating trees, baking cookies, and watching corny movies.  For those of us with one (or hundreds) of cameras, we spend at least a portion of this season taking pictures of it. Yet, photographing holiday or wintry scenes isn’t…

Voigtländer Bessamatic Deluxe (1962)

This is a Voigtländer Bessamatic Deluxe made by Voigtländer AG Braunschweig between the years of 1962 and 1967.  It is a slightly improved model to the original Bessamatic from 1959 with the addition of a T-shaped “Judas window” above the exposure meter which allows both aperture and shutter speed settings to be…