What is it? This is a Brownie Starmatic made by the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, NY between the years of 1959 and 1963. It was the first Brownie camera to have both an exposure meter and automatic exposure. It is a simple, mostly plastic camera that used 127 roll…
What is it? This is a Chinon CE-4 35mm SLR made by Chinon Industries Inc starting in 1980. It was Chinon’s first SLR using the Pentax K-mount, after they abandoned the M42 screw mount. The CE-4 was quickly upgraded to the CE-4s model which revised the shutter speeds and meter…
What is it? This is an AGFA Parat I, a 35mm half frame camera made in West Germany between the years of 1963 and 1968. The Parat I was the most basic model in AGFAs Parat lineup of half frame cameras, which also consisted of the Paramat and Optima Parat…
What is it? This is a Minolta A, a 35mm rangefinder made by Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko starting in 1955. It was Minolta’s first attempt at an entry level 35mm rangefinder aimed at the amateur market. Despite it’s stance as an entry level camera, it had modern features like a 4-element…
What is it? This is a Certo Doppel Box made by Certo Camera Werk of Dresden Germany around 1935. Some sources online suggest this camera was made in 1932, but I believe the later date to be correct. The Doppel Box is an all metal box camera with several unique…
What is it? This is a Bilora Bella medium format scale focus camera made by Kürbi & Niggeloh of Radevormwald, West Germany between the years of 1955 and 1958. The name Bilora Bella was the name of a long running series of inexpensive and simple, but attractive cameras made by the company…
What is it? This is a Pouva Start, a simple medium format camera made almost entirely out of Bakelite. It was manufactured by Karl Pouva AG in Frietal, Germany between the years 1952 and 1971. This is the first version of the camera with a popup sports finder and was…
What is it? This is a Ricoh FF-90 Super, an advanced and fully automatic 35mm point and shoot camera made by Ricoh Co., Ltd in 1987 The Super is a slight upgrade to the original FF-90 from two years earlier, and was very popular in it’s home country of Japan…
What is it? This is a Minolta Auto Wide 35mm camera made by Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko K.K. in 1958. It was a scale focus camera that had a unique combination of a wide angle lens, a coupled selenium exposure meter, and a unique click stop focus system to simplify focus and exposure…
This is a Nikon F single lens reflex camera which was made by Nippon Kogaku in Japan from 1959 through 1973. It was Nippon Kogaku’s first attempt in the SLR market and was aimed at the professional photographer. The Nikon F both raised the bar for what a professional camera…
This is a Pentacon FM 35mm SLR made by VEB Zeiss-Ikon Dresden in East Germany between the years of 1958 and 1961. This camera is part of the Contax S series which debuted in 1949 as the first German built SLR camera with a fixed pentaprism viewfinder. It is identical…
What is it? This is a Ricoh 519M 35mm rangefinder made by Riken Optical Industries Co., Ltd, which first went on sale in 1959. It is an evolution of the earlier Ricoh Five-One-Nine which was a very similar camera, except without a built in meter. The Ricoh 500-series cameras were very…
