One of the appealing things about collecting cameras is discovering the huge variety of brands, styles, and variants that have existed over the past 100+ years. No matter what size negative you wish to shoot, whether you want something fully automatic or completely manual, if you’re left or right handed,…
It doesn’t take long to be a camera collector to have come across one of those oval gold foil PASSED stickers on many Japanese optical products. While it was common practice by many original owners of Japanese camera or lens owners to remove this sticker, many still remain in various…
This is an Aires Radar-Eye, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Aires Camera Ind. Co., LTD in 1960. The Radar-Eye would be the the most advanced rangefinder camera produced by Aires, and also it’s last. Built on the same platform as the previous Aires 35 IIIC, the Radar-Eye added a…
My current digital camera is a Fujifilm X-T20 and when I am out shooting, I can change the simulated ISO setting as high as 12,800 in standard mode and 51,200 in “extended” mode meaning that no matter how slow of a lens I mount to it, I can shoot the…
This is a KW Praktiflex, a 35mm SLR camera built by Kamera-Werkstätten AG in Dresden-Niedersedlitz, (East) Germany between the years of 1939 and 1949. The Praktiflex was originally designed by Alois Hoheisel and was the first new camera built by KW after ownership of the company was transferred to Charles…
Mike Novak is a Fort Dodge based photographer, camera collector, and film enthusiast who lives in Fort Dodge, Iowa. For the past several months, Mike attended several town hall events for a number of candidates prior to the Iowa Caucus and brought with him a selection of film cameras, vintage lenses,…
The Eastman Kodak Company’s daylight loading 35mm film cassette made it’s debut in 1934. With the release of the first Retina camera, Kodak’s type 135 film format took the world by storm and within a few short years was the dominant format of easy to load 35mm film for miniature…
This is a Bell & Howell Autoload 342, a compact camera made by Canon of Japan that used Kodak’s type 126 Instamatic film cassettes. The Autoload 342 had an innovative Focus-matic system that used a delta rangefinder that worked using a moving ball bearing that would trap the focus distance…
I wanted to take this opportunity to address a vicious, slanderous rumor that has been circulating the Internet, perpetuated by two rival film photography bloggers. In my time writing reviews, I have often been overwhelmed by the positive feedback and immense help shown in my quest to make this site…
I love prototypes. Getting a chance to see concepts for the next great thing which for one reason or another never materialized is infinitely interesting to me. On this site, I showed you a prototype Kodak TLR that had one of the most ambitious feature sets I’ve ever seen and…
This is a Futura S, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Futura Kamerawerk GmbH in Freiburg, West Germany starting in 1952. The Futura S was a later variant of the original Futura camera, first released in 1950. All Futura cameras featured a unique screw/breech lock interchangeable lens mount, a leaf…
As a member of the Vintage Camera Collectors group on Facebook, the most common “new member” post is from someone who in one way or another, has acquired an old camera and wants to know what it’s worth. Perhaps it belonged to their grandfather or some other distant relative, or…
