Cameras made in Japan
This is a Minolta Super A, an interchangeable lens 35mm rangefinder made by Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko K.K. starting in 1957. The name Super A suggests it’s part of the Minolta A-series of cameras which first debuted in 1955. Unlike the other A-series cameras, the Super A is much larger and…
This is a Taron Chic, a vertical half frame 35mm scale focus camera made by Taron Company Limited of Tokyo Japan starting in 1961. The Chic shoots 18mm x 24mm “half-frame” exposures on regular 35mm film. Unlike most half frame 35mm cameras, the film transports vertically, rather than horizontally which…
This is the Asahi Pentax, the very first 35mm SLR produced by the Asahi Optical Company of Japan to use a pentaprism viewfinder. The camera is often referred to as the Pentax AP by collectors even though that was never officially documented. The other camera is the Asahi Pentax K,…
Film is back! Well, sorta. OK, film never went anywhere, but like vinyl records did in the early 21st century, the steady decrease of film usage seems to have bottomed out and has started to increase again. According to Ilford in an article published in February 2015, 30% of people…
In June 2018, I took a look at a high performance compact point and shoot camera made by Canon called the MC. The MC had a feature set comparable to the Pentax PC35AF and Ricoh FF-90 Super which I had also previously reviewed. Although a handsome and well featured model,…
This is a Sure Shot del Sol made by Canon starting in March 1995. The del Sol was part of Canon’s highly successful Sure Shot series and is notable as being the very first completely solar powered camera. Using a large fold down tandem amorphous solar panel that covers nearly…
This is a Canonflex R2000, a 35mm SLR made by Canon of Japan and was produced between the years 1960 and 1964. The Canonflex R2000, along with an economy model called the Canonflex RP both replaced the original Canonflex from 1959 which was Canon’s answer to the Nikon F. It…
This is an Olympus OM-4, a 35mm single lens reflex camera produced by Olympus Optical Company of Japan between the years 1983 to 1987. It was the successor to the Olympus OM-2N, and was the most advanced in the Olympus OM-series dating back to the original model from 1972. The…
Today is April 30th, which means it is exactly halfway to Halloween 2019, so in the spirit of a day that’s not really Halloween, I provide you a screen cap from a Halloween movie, that’s not really a Halloween movie. That’s right, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch is…
This is a Yashica Samurai x3.0, a half frame 35mm SLR made by Kyocera of Japan starting in 1988. The Samurai has a unique feature set, being one of the only vertically traveling half frame 35mm SLRs. It was also one of the first of a new genre of “bridge…
This is a Minolta Maxxum 7000, a 35mm SLR made by Minolta Camera Corp in Japan between the years 1985 and 1988. This version of the camera was sold for export in North America, and when sold in Europe and Japan was known as the 7000 AF and α-7000, respectively. …
This is a Walz Envoy 35, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Walz Company, LTD of Tokyo Japan from 1958 to around 1961. The Envoy was an up-level model of the earlier Walz 35 and came with an excellent 7-element Kominar lens, built by Nittō Kōgaku of Japan. Walz was…
