Cameras made in Japan
This is a Mamiya M645 semi-professional medium format Single Lens Reflex camera. This was one of the most popular cameras for professional and advanced amateur photographers of the late 70s and early 1980s. It was a popular choice of wedding photographers due to it’s rugged design, interchangeable lenses and viewfinders,…
What is it? This is a Nikon N80 35mm SLR camera released by Nikon on January 27, 2000. The N80 is known as the F80 outside of North America, but otherwise the two cameras are identical. There was also a version with a built in data-back known as the N80QD. The…
This is a Canon AF35M 35mm auto focus camera made by Canon in 1979. This camera was also known as the Sure Shot in the US and the Autoboy in Japan. It was the world’s first active auto focus camera. The Canon AF35M proved to be a pretty reliable camera that could…
What is it? This is a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s rangefinder camera built by Minolta Camera K.K around 1966. The Hi-Matic 7s is an evolution of the original Hi-Matic from 1962 which was one of the very first Japanese cameras with full auto exposure. The 7s added several important features like full…
This is a Pentax ES II Single Lens Reflex camera made in Japan by Asahi Pentax. It is one of the very few M42 screw mount cameras that is capable of auto exposure, and was the very last screw mount camera made by Asahi Pentax before they switched to K-Mount…
This is the Konica AiBORG super-zoom point and shoot camera. It was introduced in September 1991 as the world’s first moving frame auto focus camera. Loaded with many buttons, a large LCD screen, and a joystick, it was a very ambitious camera boasting a wide array of features and shooting modes…
This is a Zenobia C a compact folding camera made by Daiichi Kōgaku in Tokyo, Japan around 1954. It is a compact folding camera that uses 120 roll film and makes 4.5cm x 6cm exposures. The history of Daiichi Kōgaku and the Zenobia is a bit confusing, but what is…
This is a Kuribayashi Karoron folding medium format camera made by K.K. Kuribayashi Shashin Kikai Seisakusho in 1949. It shoots 16 exposures of 6cm x 4.5cm on a roll of 120 film. The Karoron is not a common camera outside of Japan, but it looks to be well built with some advanced…
What is it? This is a Canon P 35mm rangefinder which was sold between 1959 and 1961. The P stands for “Populaire”, meaning it was marketed as a budget (or popular) choice compared to higher spec Canon cameras. The P was very similar to the Canon VI-L, but lacking some of it’s features…
This is a Nikon FA 35mm SLR camera which was one of the most technologically advanced cameras of it’s day. Upon it’s release in 1983, Nikon advertised it as the “Technocamera” due to it’s many innovative electronic features. Several of the FA’s features are still considered relevant today like it’s CPU controlled matrix metering…
This is a TL-Super 35mm SLR camera made by the Japanese camera company Yashica. In the 1950s and 60s, Yashica was well known for their successful line of TLRs and Rangefinder cameras, but in the 1960s, they also had a line of SLRs that used the same 42mm screw mount…
What is it? This is a Canon T50 35mm SLR film camera. It was the first in Canon’s T-series lineup which would be the last Canon SLRs to use the aging manual focus FD mount. The T50 was an entry level camera with full program mode auto exposure and almost no…
