This is an Ilford Witness, a 35mm rangefinder camera made in 1953 by Peto Scott Electrical Instruments for Ilford of London, England. The Witness was a very ambitious camera, first designed in 1947 by ex employees of Leitz and Zeiss-Ikon. It incorporated a unique hybrid screw/bayonet lens mount, focal plane…
This is a Canon VT de luxe, a 35mm rangefinder made by Canon in Tokyo, Japan starting in May 1957. There were three different versions of the Canon VT de luxe, all with subtle changes and identified internally as the VTD, VTDZ, and VTDM. This camera is the first version,…
This is a Mamiya 6 Model V, a medium format roll film folding camera, produced by Mamiya Optical Co., Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan between the years 1953 and 1955. The Mamiya 6 series dates back to 1940 and received continual updates throughout it’s life, this model being the first with…
This is a Rokuoh-sha Pearlette, a compact folding camera in the “Vest Pocket” style, made by Rokuoh-sha which was part of Konishiroku, predecessor of Konica. It was built in Yodobashi, Tokyo, Japan between the years 1925 to about 1947. The Pearlette has an all metal body and folds using double…
This is the Nikon F3, a 35mm single lens reflex camera produced by Nippon Kogaku of Tokyo, Japan between the years 1980 and 2001, making it the longest list Nikon camera ever made and one of the longest ever produced cameras in history. The Nikon F3 was the third in…
This is an Auto Terra Super, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by K.K. Teraoka Seikōjo in Japan between the years 1959 and 1960. The Auto Terra Super was one of the last and most advanced in a line of Auto Terra cameras made between 1954 and 1960. The signature feature…
This is a Nicca III-L, a 35mm rangefinder camera originally developed in 1958 by Nicca Camera Co. Ltd. of Japan and upon it’s release, sold under Nicca’s ownership by Yashica. Although two more Nicca built cameras continued to be sold with Yashica branding, the III-L is the considered the last…
This is a Yashica Electro 35 CC, a compact 35mm rangefinder camera made by Yashica of Japan from 1970 to at least 1975. Despite sharing a similar name to Yashica’s popular Electro 35 series, this camera has a much smaller body with several important upgrades from those larger cameras. The…
This is a Corfield Periflex 3, an innovative 35mm reflex camera produced by K.G. Corfield Ltd., of Wolverhampton, England between the years 1957 and 1960. The Periflex 3 was part of a series of cameras that use a small reflex mirror and focusing prism mounted to a mechanism that can…
This is a Hasselblad 500 C, a medium format SLR produced by Hasselblad in Gothenburg, Sweden between 1957 and 1970. With the 500 C, Hasselblad switched to a between the lens leaf shutter in place of the unreliable focal plane shutters of earlier models. Along with new lenses, the camera…
This is a Suzuki Press Van, a medium format folding camera made by Suzuki Kōgaku Kōgyō K.K. in 1953. The Press Van is dual format, and can shoot both 6cm x 6cm images on 120 roll film and 24mm x 36mm images on 35mm film. This is the first version…
This is a “military” Kardon 35mm rangefinder camera, produced by the Premier Instrument Corp in New York City between the years 1947 and 1954. The Kardon was originally developed as an “American Leica” after imports of cameras from Germany had ceased during World War II. Charged with building the camera…
