Eastman Kodak camera company
The late 1930s were an exciting time for Kodak. In 1934 the first commercially available day-light loading 35mm film was released, and was off to a great start as the most popular film format for “miniature” cameras. The German made Kodak Retina series was doing well and was establishing Kodak…
Here at Mike Eckman dot com, I like to ask the tough questions. Questions other camera review sites are unwilling or unable to answer. One day, while listening to some Kid Rock, drinking Budweiser, eating McDonalds, and shooting off fireworks, I thought to myself, “Gee, what was the best American…
This is a Kodak Ektra, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by the Eastman Kodak Corporation between the years 1941 and 1948. It was at the time of it’s release, and still is today, the most advanced and feature rich American made 35mm camera ever built. Designed to compete with German…
The year was 1953, the Eastman Kodak company was on a string of successful cameras produced for the US military, from the Kodak 35 (called PH-324), Kodak Ektra, and Kodak Medalist, and the time had come to create yet another quality compact camera up to military specifications. The Kodak Signet…
You press the button, we do the rest. There have been a number of brilliant men and women throughout history that have introduced ideas or products into the marketplace that not only revolutionized a product, but rather a way in which things were done. Nikola Tesla, Orville & Wilbur Wright,…
This is the Kodak Tourist, made by the Eastman Kodak Corporation between the years 1948 and 1951. It is a medium format folding camera that shoots 6cm x 9cm images on 620 roll film. Despite it’s humble appearance, the Tourist series was somewhat of an upscale camera, optionally featuring Kodak’s…
Kodak’s Plus-X was a type of fine-grained, medium speed panchromatic black and white film originally released in 1938 as Eastman Plus-X, a motion picture stock rated at ASA 50. In the 1940s, it quickly became popular with still photographers as an alternative to slower orthochromatic films of the day. The…
This is a Kodak VR35 K14, a 35mm point and shoot camera manufactured in Japan by Chinon Industries for the Eastman Kodak company between the years 1986 – 1989. It was the top of the line in Kodak’s VR35 family which consisted of at least 15 different models ranging from…
This is a Signet 40 rangefinder camera made by the Eastman Kodak Company between the years 1956 and 1959. It was the successor to the earlier Signet 35 retaining it’s excellent triangular coincident image rangefinder, and improving upon it with a redesigned Bakelite and stamped metal body, a more flexible…
This is a Kodak Bantam Special, made by the Eastman Kodak Corporation in Rochester, NY between the years 1936 and 1948. The camera was the top of the line in Kodak’s Bantam series which used 828 roll film and made 28mm x 40mm exposures which were 30% larger than standard…
This is a Kodak Chevron, a medium format rangefinder camera buit by the Eastman Kodak Company between the years of 1953 and 1956. The Chevron, like all medium format Kodak cameras from the era, used Kodak’s proprietary 620 format of film, which was nearly identical to competing 120 film, but…
What is it? This is a Kodak Motormatic 35 camera. It is an updated version of Kodak’s first 35mm auto exposure camera, the Kodak Automatic 35 which was released the year before. The Motormatic added a spring motor advance, allowing a photographer to make exposures as fast as he or…
