This is a Yasuhara T981, a 35mm rangefinder camera created by Yasuhara Co. Ltd. but built in Jiangxi, China by the Phenix Optical Company. The Yasuhara T981 was conceived by an ex Kyocera employee named Shin Yasuhara who created his own company with the intent of building cameras. The Yasuhara…
This is a Keystone K1020 SLR, a single lens reflex camera sold by Keystone Camera Company, Inc, of Boston, Massachusetts starting in 1966. Although branded and sold by an American company, the camera was made in Japan, most likely by Mamiya. The K1020 uses Kodak’s Instamatic type 126 instant-load cassettes…
This is Toko Tone, a subminiature camera made by Tōyō Kōki Seisakusho in Tokyo, Japan starting in 1948. The Toko Tone is part of a class of cameras often called “Midget” cameras, named after a simpler model called the Misuzu Shōkai originally released in 1937. All “Midget” style cameras use…
This is an Ansco / GAF Memo II Automatic, a 35mm half frame camera produced by Ricoh in 1964 for Ansco of Binghamton, New York. The Memo II Automatic is a name variant of the Ricoh Auto Half which had been in production since 1963, and is also an updated…
This is a Halina 35X Super, a 35mm viewfinder camera produced by Haking Enterprises Ltd. in Hong Kong starting in 1963. It is an update of the original Halina 35X with a revised top plate, a new film advance lever, and a much larger viewfinder. Although larger, it is still…
This is a Kodak Brownie Super 27 camera, made by Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY between the years 1961 and 1965. This curiously shaped camera was part of Kodak’s long running Brownie series, and includes a built-in flash using AG-1 flashes, a two speed shutter, and a two position focus…
This is a Super Deluxe 1.7 rangefinder camera, produced by Mamiya Optical Co. starting in 1964. The Mamiya Super Deluxe was a premium 35mm rangefinder and was Mamiya’s first camera to feature a CdS exposure meter. Although the Super Deluxe has a non-removable lens, there were three versions available of…
This is a Minolta AF-Sv, a 35mm point and shoot, fully automatic camera made in Japan by Minolta starting in 1984. Known by it’s nickname “the Talker”, the AF-Sv is notable as having a voice feature in which the camera can play back voice alerts as reminders for things like…
This is a Yashica T AF, a 35mm fully automatic point and shoot camera made by Kyocera of Japan starting in 1985. The Yashica T was the first in a long running Yashica T-series of cameras that all came with a Carl Zeiss Tessar T* lens. At the time this…
This is the Tower 41, a 35mm rangefinder camera built in Japan by Mamiya Optical Co., Ltd. for the Sears Roebuck and Company starting in 1961. The Tower 41 is similar to the earlier Tower 39, also built by Mamiya, but adding a combined coincident image rangefinder and a faster…
This is a Smena-8 (Смена-8), a 35mm scale focus camera produced by LOMO in St. Petersberg in the former Soviet Union between the years 1963 and 1971. The Smena-8 was part of a long running line of simple Smena cameras that saw many iterations over the course of several decades…
This is a View-Master Personal Stereo Camera, made by Sawyer’s Inc., out of Portland, Oregon between the years of 1952 and 1955. The View-Master Personal Stereo Camera shoots 14mm x 12mm stereoscopic images on regular 35mm film for use in View-Master slides, slide viewers, and projectors. The circular View-Master slides…
