Cameras made in Japan
This is a Graflex Graphic 35 Jet, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by Kowa Optical Works of Japan for Graflex, Inc of Rochester, NY starting in 1961. The Graphic 35 Jet is an evolution of the earlier Graphic 35 which itself evolved from the Ciro 35 and Cee-Ay 35 cameras. …
This is a Canonet G-III QL17 fixed lens 35mm rangefinder camera. It was the last in a line of successful Canonet rangefinder cameras starting with the original Canonet from 1961. This model was made between 1972 and the summer of 1982 and sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. The G-III in…
This is the Fujica Fujicarex II, a 35mm SLR camera produced by Fuji Photo Optical Co., Ltd. starting in 1963. It uses a Citizen central leaf shutter, and has shutter priority automatic exposure via the selenium exposure meter mounted in front of the prism. Although not a true interchangeable lens…
This is an Olympus Trip 35, a 35mm scale focus camera made by Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. between the years 1967 and 1984. The Trip was an extremely popular compact camera and is credited as one of the first truly successful point and shoot cameras, ushering in a new age…
Choosing your favorite camera is not an easy task. Much like parents who have more than one child, picking which one you like better isn’t an easy thing to do. Thankfully, much like parenting, there’s no reason you can’t have two favorite cameras. But this is the Internet and people…
This is a Minolta XE-7, a 35mm SLR camera produced by Minolta Camera Co. between the years 1974 and 1977. The XE-7 was sold exclusively in the United States as it was called the XE and XE-1 in Japan and Europe respectively. The XE-7 was the product of a joint…
This is a Ricoh Hi-Color 35, a 35mm scale focus camera made by Ricoh Co. LTD of Japan starting in 1968. This model was a mid-level variant in a line up of well featured point and shoot cameras with features like a wind up motorized film transport, shutter priority automatic…
This is the fourth in a series of posts based on personal conversations I’ve had with Mr. Robert Rotoloni, author, Nikon historian, and president of the Nikon Historical Society. If you’d like to know more, I recommend reading parts 2 and 3 as they cover a tremendous amount about Nippon…
This is a Nikon EL2, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera produced by Nippon Kogaku K.K. of Tokyo, Japan in 1977. The Nikon EL2 was a replacement for the earlier Nikkormat EL/ELW from 1972. Like it’s predecessor, the camera featured a Copal Square electronic shutter with aperture priority automatic exposure,…
This is a Sony Mavica MVC-FD88, a 1.3 Megapixel digital camera that first went on sale in June 1999. The MVC-FD88 was part of Sony’s long running Digital Mavica series and stored it’s images on 3.5 inch floppy disks. At the time of it’s release, the FD88 model had the…
One of the appealing things about collecting cameras is discovering the huge variety of brands, styles, and variants that have existed over the past 100+ years. No matter what size negative you wish to shoot, whether you want something fully automatic or completely manual, if you’re left or right handed,…
It doesn’t take long to be a camera collector to have come across one of those oval gold foil PASSED stickers on many Japanese optical products. While it was common practice by many original owners of Japanese camera or lens owners to remove this sticker, many still remain in various…
