This is a Mamiya Auto XTL, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by Mamiya Optical Co., Ltd. starting in 1971. It was the first in Mamiya’s short lived X-series and upon it’s release in April 1971, was the most advanced 35mm SLR camera in the world. It incorporated a large…
This is a Perfex Forty-Four 35mm rangefinder camera made by the Candid Camera Corporation in Chicago in 1939. The Forty-Four was the first in a series made by the Candid company until the early 1950s at which point the company out of business. Featuring an interchangeable screw mount with a…
This is a Kodak Chevron, a medium format rangefinder camera buit by the Eastman Kodak Company between the years of 1953 and 1956. The Chevron, like all medium format Kodak cameras from the era, used Kodak’s proprietary 620 format of film, which was nearly identical to competing 120 film, but…
Summer is here, and that means a lot of things to a lot of people. Outdoor barbecues, swimming, camping, family vacations, and one of my favorites…auto racing! I love photography, but it is not my only interest. In my 20s, I used to be an avid gear head, modifying and…
This is a Petri Racer 35mm rangefinder camera made by Petri Camera K.K. starting in 1966. The Racer was a compact version of the larger 7 series but came with similar 6-element f/1.9 and f/2.8 lenses, and featured the company’s trademark “Green-O-Matic” system which increased contrast in the coincident image rangefinder. …
This week’s Keppler’s Vault is a “two-fer” offering two separate articles about the 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera, one from August 1957 and the other from February 1960. In the first article, Herbert Keppler and Arthur Kramer take a look at the state of Prism Reflexes and in the second,…
What is it? This is an ANSCO Super Regent 35mm folding rangefinder camera, made between the years 1955 and 1959 for ANSCO by AGFA Camera Werk in Munich, Germany. The Super Regent is a rebadged AGFA Super Solinette, but sold by ANSCO in the United States. Both the Super Solinette…
David Douglas Duncan passed away on June 7, 2018 at his home in France at the age of 102. One of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, his works have been seen all around the world, most commonly while he worked for LIFE magazine. He photographed the Korean…
I am no stranger to the Meopta Flexaret TLR series, as my review for the Flexaret VII was one of the first reviews on this site back in 2015. Meopta was a highly respected optics company which made a variety of 35mm and medium format cameras in the 50s, 60s,…
What is it? This is the Canon MC (short for Micro Compact), a compact fully automatic point and shoot 35mm camera released by Canon in April 1984. The MC was conceived as an ultra portable camera to compete with models like the Olympus XA series, except it added the convenience…
What is it? This is a Leica Ic 35mm camera made by Ernst Leitz GmbH from 1950 to 1952. The Leica Ic was a variant of the earlier Leica IIIc but without a rangefinder, viewfinder, or any slow speeds. It’s primary purpose was for scientific and specialized photography. This camera…
I am happy to present to you what I hope will be a continuing series of collaborative posts with life-long photographer and Nikon historian Robert Rotoloni. Robert is an American photographer and graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. He was attracted to photography at a young age, buying…
