Cameras made in Japan
What is it? This is a Miranda Sensomat 35mm SLR camera made by the Japanese Miranda Camera corporation. Although marketed as a budget model, the Sensomat line of cameras featured several features found in much more expensive cameras such as an interchangeable prism and stop down TTL metering. The Miranda…
This is a Pentax Sv 35mm SLR film camera made by the Asahi Optical Company, based in Tokyo, Japan. The significant feature of the Sv is it’s inclusion of a self-timer which was not available on earlier models. It was one the last models of the Pentax S-series and was…
What is it? This is a Minolta XG7 (Minolta refers to it as an XG-7 on paper, but the camera’s name plate says XG7) which is a manual focus 35mm SLR camera introduced in 1977. The name XG7 refers to a model sold in the United States only. Minolta sold…
What is it? This is a Wards am551 rangefinder camera sold by the Montgomery Wards chain of department stores. This camera is a rebadged Konica Auto S2 which was a very nice Japanese rangefinder of the mid 60s. Back in those days, it was common for major American department stores…
This is a Yashica-Mat twins lens reflex (TLR) camera made by Yashima Optical Company in 1957. Although not considered to be a direct copy, the Yashica-Mat took a lot of design and features from the German Rolleiflex TLR such as the auto-cocking shutter and folding advance lever. It uses 120…
What is it? This is a Yashica Electro 35 GS electronically controlled rangefinder 35mm camera. The Yashica Electro series was launched in 1966 and was the worlds first completely electronically controlled camera. This Japanese camera was very popular throughout the late 60s and 70s, and remains a popular model for…
