GAS… Or for those of you non-collector types out there, “Gear Acquisition Syndrome”, is something that doesn’t just apply to camera collectors, but any group of people who drool over ‘gear’ and want to acquire it. The concept of GAS certainly isn’t new as trade shows, magazines, fan clubs, and…
For as long as people have been on this planet, we have been looking at the skies, and for as long as people have had access to cameras, we have been trying to take photographs of it. Every year there is some celestial event such as the recent Perseid Meteor…
This is a Super Paxette II BL 35mm rangefinder camera made by Carl Braun Kamera-Werke of Nuremburg, Germany starting in 1958. This was one of the last, and most advanced in Braun’s successful line of Paxette cameras dating back to the original Paxette I from 1950. This model has an…
Growing up in the 1980s, the View-Master stereo viewer with it’s iconic red plastic shell and round paper discs were a common sight for me and pretty much everyone I knew. Pre-loaded discs with 3D images were available of everything from far away cities to scenes from Star Wars movies. …
These two Prakticas were made by VEB Pentacon as part of the 4th generation of the Praktica 35mm single lens reflex series between the years of 1963 and 1966. The model on the left is a model IV F, and the one on the right is a model V F. …
This is a Nikon M 35mm rangefinder made by Nippon Kogaku starting in 1949. The Nikon M was the followup to the original Nikon rangefinder from a year earlier and was produced in very limited numbers. The “M” increased the exposed image size to 24mm x 34mm and increased frame…
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,…
