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…
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…
Automation is coming! In the decade after World War II, many of the world’s biggest economies were advancing technology at a fast pace. The United States and the Soviet Union were deep entrenched in a space race to explore the moon and our solar system. People fantasized about flying cars,…
This is a Rolleiflex Standard K2 Twin Lens Reflex medium format camera, built by Franke & Heidecke Brunswick between the years 1932 and 1938. This model was the first revision to the original Rolleiflex from 1929 and upgraded the camera with several significant features, including support for 120 format roll…
A common question I often see asked in classic film or vintage camera discussion groups like Vintage Camera Collectors on Facebook, is for advice on what is an inexpensive way to get into medium format film. Like most questions asked by people new to the hobby, the correct answer usually…
This is a Yashica Pentamatic S, a 35mm SLR camera made by Yashica Co., Ltd. starting in May 1961 through the end of 1962. The Pentamatic S was the third and final model in Yashica’s unsuccessful Pentamatic series. It featured a unique bayonet lens mount shared by no other camera,…
One Hour Photo is a series of casual one on one conversations with a variety of people I admire who in one way or another have helped me along the way collecting or repairing classic film cameras. Each article is a summary of a roughly one hour conversation with the…
This is an Olympus Pen EE-S, a 35mm half frame camera made by Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. between the years of 1962 and 1966. As with all cameras from Olympus’s Pen series, these are compact half frame cameras that shoot 18x24mm “half frame” images on normal 35mm film. The EE…
Ernst Leitz has been making Leica cameras for nearly 100 years and in that time, countless articles have been written about their many products. It’s unlikely that today, in 2019, I could dig up anything that you haven’t already seen before. So, it probably comes as no surprise that this…
This is a Miranda Sensorex 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by Miranda Camera of Japan between the years 1966 to 1972. The Sensorex was a semi-professional SLR camera that aimed to be an alternative to more expensive professional cameras made by Nikon and Topcon, offering similar features, but at…
This week, I bring to you the third in a series of articles that were published in the mid to late 1950s about the state of the German Camera Industry. The first two parts were part of a large 42 page special section in the May 1956 issue of Popular…
