This is a Minolta 35 Model IIB, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by Chiyoda Kōgaku in Tokyo, Japan in 1958. The Model IIB was the last model in the Minolta 35 series of interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras, dating back to the original model from 1947. Despite being Minolta’s last hurrah…
This is an Alpa Si 2000, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by Chinon Industries Inc. between the years 1977 and 1979 for the Swiss manufacturer Pignons S.A. as a cost effective alternative to that company’s high end hand built Alpa cameras. The Alpa Si 2000 is based off…
This is a Miranda T, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by the Orion Camera Company in Tokyo, Japan starting in 1955. The Orion Miranda T is a historically significant camera for a number of reasons. It was not only the first camera made by what would become the…
This is a Kinax III, a medium format folding camera produced by Kinax S.A. in Paris, France between the years 1951 and 1956. The Kinax III was a tri-format camera, shooting eight 6cm x 9cm, twelve 6cm x 6cm, or sixteen 6cm x 4cm exposures on 620 format roll film…
This is a Pentax Super A, a 35mm SLR camera made by Asahi Optical Co. Ltd in Tokyo, Japan between the years 1983 and 1987. When sold in North America, the Pentax Super A was called the Super Program. The only difference between the two is that the Super A…
This is the GOMZ Junost (Юность), a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by Gosudarstvennyi Optiko-Mekhanicheskii Zavod (GOMZ for short) near Leningrad, Russia between the years 1957 and 1961. The Junost was an unusually styled camera which looked unlike any other Soviet camera of the era, with a strange combination of old…
This is a Master Reflex, a medium format Single Lens Reflex camera made by VEB Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Optik (WEFO) starting in 1950. The Master Reflex shoots 6cm x 6cm images on regular 120 format roll film. The name “Master Reflex” was what the camera was called when exported…
This is a KMZ Zenit (Зенит), a 35mm single lens reflex camera made by Krasnogorski Mekhanicheskii Zavod (KMZ) in the former Soviet Union between the years of 1952 and 1956. The Zenit was the first Zenit camera, first SLR produced by KMZ, and only second Soviet SLR to be produced…
Back in April 2016, I published a review for an advanced point and shoot camera called the Konica AiBORG. In that review, I was highly critical of the AiBORG, saying the ergonomics were terrible, the layout of controls was illogical, that it had a tiny and difficult to use viewfinder,…
This is a Yashica 230-AF, a 35mm SLR made by Kyocera of Japan from 1987 to 1991. The Yashica 230-AF was part of a new lineup of auto focus SLRs produced by Kyocera featuring an all new auto focus lens mount which replaced the manual focus Contax C/Y mount used…
This is a Norita 66, a medium format Single Lens Reflex camera made by Norita Kogaku K.K. starting in 1971 in Tokyo, Japan. The Norita 66 is an evolution of the Rittreck 6×6, a very similar camera which started production in 1968 by a company called Musashino Kōki who went…
This is a Canon A-1, a 35mm SLR camera made by Canon Inc. between the years of 1978 and 1985. The Canon A-1 was one of the most advanced SLRs its era with a long list of features making it an enticing alternative to the company’s pro-level Canon F-1. The…
