japan

Ricoh Ricohmatic 44

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Ricoh Ricohmatic 44

The Ricoh Ricohmatic 44 is a compact twin lens reflex camera designed by the Riken Optical Company (now Ricoh) for 4x4cm exposures on 127 film. Like several of its contemporaries, the Ricohmatic 44’s color schemes (aside from this example’s grey-blue on beige, the camera also came in dark grey on beige and creme on beige) deviate from the standard black and silver palette in favor of something a bit more playful to set it apart from its larger, more serious 6x6cm siblings.

Taron Eye

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Taron Eye

The Taron Eye is a premium 35mm rangefinder camera debuted in 1960 by Taron. The Eye is the predecessor to the very similar Taron Eyemax that was introduced shortly afterwards. However, unlike the Eyemax which came with a choice of two lenses with different maximum apertures, the Eye appears to have only been offered with the relatively high-end 45mm f/1.8 Taronar lens.

Kalimar Reflex

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Kalimar Reflex

The Kalimar Reflex (also known as the Soligor 66, Haco 66, and Fodor 66) is an unusual looking 120 format single lens reflex camera originally manufactured by Fujita Kogaku as the Fujita 66 and then rebranded by American distribution company Kalimar (and others) for sale. The Fujita 66 and its clones are heavily based on an upright medium format SLR system developed by the German designer Heinz Kilfitt who also created the Metz Mecaflex as well as the original prototype upon which Robot modeled its cameras.

Petri Flex 7

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Petri Flex 7

The Petri Flex 7 is a single lens reflex camera introduced by Petri in 1964 and is claimed to be the world’s first SLR with a fully integrated cadmium sulfide light meter. Known by many as “the poor man’s Contarex” for its superficial (and most likely intentional) resemblance to the Zeiss Ikon Contarex “Bullseye”, the Flex 7 was marketed as Petri’s flagship model and was supposedly meant to compete with the nigh untouchable Nikon F. Advertisements put special emphasis on the camera’s auto-indexing feature (meaning that the lens’s aperture setting would be automatically relayed to the body), the fact that its integrated light meter had an in-viewfinder indicator, and how Petri’s mastery of mass production meant high quality cameras at low prices.

Taron Chic

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Taron Chic

The Taron Chic is a vertically oriented 35mm half-frame camera introduced by Taron in 1961. The only other camera that I’m aware of that bears any resemblance to the Chic is the Yashica Rapide. However, since they were both introduced in 1961, it’s unclear as to who copied whose vertical design or if there was indeed any copying done at all.

Beauty Super L

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The Beauty Super L (also sold as the Beauty Varicon SL) is a 35mm fixed lens rangefinder introduced by Beauty Camera K.K. in 1958. The Super L was one of the first cameras sold by Beauty after the company recovered from bankruptcy in 1957 and one of the last models produced by the company until it closed its doors for good sometime in the early to mid 1960s.

Topcon Unirex

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The Topcon Unirex is a single lens reflex camera introduced by Tokyo Kogaku in 1969. While not one of the company’s higher end models, the Unirex still carries the high build quality associated with Topcon SLRs.

Tower 39 Automatic 35

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The Tower 39 Automatic 35 is an unusual looking fixed-lens viewfinder camera manufactured in Japan as the Mamiya Automatic 35 EEF and rebadged for sale in America under the Sears, Roebuck & Company’s Tower brand. As one of the largest retailers in the world at the time, Sears sold a huge variety of cameras including those that it arranged to have sold under its own in-house brands.

Minolta Autopak 500

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The Minolta Autopak 500 is a stylish viewfinder camera introduced in 1966 and designed for the 126 film cassette. Rebadged and sold as the Ilford Monarch in the United Kingdom and the Revue-matic 500 in Germany, the Autopak 500 pioneered an auto exposure system capable of automatically firing the flash in low light situations, a feature that has since become standard in all cameras.

Toyoca 35-S

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The Toyoca 35-S (also sold as the Strato 35) is a 35mm viewfinder camera introduced by Toyohashi Y.K. Tougodo in 1957 under the brand name Toyoca, a contraction of “Toyohashi” (where the company was based) and the English word “Camera.” The name “Tougodo,” on the other hand, was in honor of one of Japan’s most famous naval heroes, Admiral Togo Heihachiro who was born in the same city as one of the company’s founders.

Toyoca Hit

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The Toyoca Hit is a family of subminiature novelty cameras introduced by the company commonly known as “Toyoca,” a contraction of “Toyohashi” (the city in which they were based at the time) and “camera.” These tiny, inexpensive cameras became extremely popular in post-war Japan and abroad, causing dozens upon dozens of models to be manufactured by a wide variety of companies. One of the most successful of these was the Hit.

Yashica Rapide

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The Yashica Rapide (also sold as the “Rapid”) is a vertically oriented 35mm half-frame camera introduced by Yashica in 1961. The launch of the unusually styled Rapide completed Yashica’s entrance into all segments of that era’s consumer camera market with the exception of medium format SLRs. The only other camera that I know of that looks like the Rapide is the Taron Chic. However, since they were both introduced in 1961, it’s unclear as to who copied who or if there was indeed any intentional copying at all.

Ricoh Singlex TLS

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The Ricoh Singlex TLS is an MMM (metal, mechanical, manual) single lens reflex camera introduced by Ricoh in 1967. In addition to selling this camera under the Ricoh name, it was also rebranded for sale in France as the Interflex 7L5 and in the United States as the Sears TLS and the K-Mart Focal TLX at their respective discount department stores.

PowerShovel Demekin Fisheye

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The PowerShovel Demekin Fisheye is a tiny, fisheye lens-equipped camera designed by PowerShovel, Ltd. for the 110 film cartridge. PowerShovel, also known as SuperHeadz was founded in the year 2000 by Hideki Omori after he successfully introduced plastic Russian cameras to Japan. Such cameras were cheaply made and often technically flawed but, much like the Lomography movement that swept through the Western world at roughly the same time, these “toy cameras” gained popularity in Japan through the interesting and unusual effects that their plastic lenses and light leaks often had on images.

Yashica Auto Focus Motor

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The Yashica Auto Focus Motor (also known as the Yashica 5-Star Auto Focus Motor) is a compact viewfinder camera with autofocus introduced by Yashica in 1981. Yashica underwent many changes during the Auto Focus Motor’s three year production life including being bought out by Kyocera and the beginning of Yashica’s departure from the consumer SLR market to focus on budget point and shoot cameras.

Canon FT QL

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The Canon FT QL is a manual, mechanical single lens reflex camera introduced by Canon in 1966 and is also the first Canon camera to feature TTL (through the lens) metering. The FT QL belongs to the family of SLRs that were designed around Canon’s short-lived FL breech-lock lens mount which lasted from 1964 until the the FD Mount was introduced in 1970. The FT is very similar to its two older brothers: the FX and the FP with the only real difference being the FX’s lack of TTL metering and the FP’s complete lack of integrated light meter. Also included in this family is the unusual Canon Pellix, the first of only a handful of cameras in history to use a fixed translucent pellicle mirror until the concept was resurrected by Sony in 2010 with its Alpha SLT series. The “QL” designation introduced by the Canon FT QL stands for “Quick Load” which denotes the inclusion of a spring-loaded hinge that assists in the loading of 35mm film. This quick loading system can also be found on other Canon models such as the Canonet QL17 G-III.

Nikon Pronea S

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The Nikon Pronea S is a fully automatic single lens reflex camera designed for the Advanced Photo System (APS) film cartridge. The now discontinued APS film format was launched in 1996, features an automatically loading cartridge aimed at photographers who were willing to trade a smaller frame size for a hassle-free film loading procedure, and was primarily sold by Kodak as Advantix and Fujifilm as Nexia. APS film had the misfortune of competing directly with a fledgling digital photography market which eventually overtook and completely overwhelmed it. Digital cameras had all but annihilated the APS film market by 2001 but it somehow managed to stagger on until it was officially discontinued in 2011.

Minolta-16 MG-S

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The Minolta-16 MG-S is a subminiature “spy” camera made for use with Minolta’s proprietary 16mm film cartridge and introduced by the Japanese camera company in 1970. Ten different Minolta-16 variants were made during its nearly 20 year (1955-1974) production run. The MG-S was the ninth model and widely considered to be the most advanced of them all.

Yashica EZ-Matic Electronic

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The Yashica EZ-Matic Electronic is a viewfinder camera made for the 126 film cartridge introduced by Yashica in 1969. Its older brother, the original Yashica EZ-Matic, is pretty high-end for what it is with two exposure modes (automatic and aperture priority), accessory shoe, and self-timer. Unfortunately, this EZ-Matic Electronic variant has none of those things.

Canon Sure Shot WP-1

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The Canon Sure Shot WP-1 (also sold as the Sure Shot A-1 in North America, the Autoboy D5 in Japan, and the Prima AS-1 in Europe) is a fully automatic waterproof 35mm compact meant to compete with the likes of the Nikon L35 AWAF, Minolta Weathermatic, and Konica Mermaid. At the time of its release, the WP-1 was the lightest and smallest underwater camera in the world.

Petri Racer

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The Petri Racer is a fixed-lens rangefinder introduced by Petri Camera Company, Inc. (formerly known as Kuribayashi Shashin Kogyo K.K.) in 1966. Similar to other Petri cameras like the 2.8 Color Super, the Racer features the signature “GREEN-O-MATIC” viewfinder which visually sets it apart from other Japanese fixed-lens rangefinders.

Toyoca Six

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The Toyoca Six is an extremely rare dual format folding camera introduced in 1957 by Toyohashi Y.K. Tougodo under the brand name Toyoca, a contraction of “Toyohashi” (the city in which the company was based at the time) and “Camera.” The other part of the name, “Tougodo,” was named after one of Japan’s most famous naval heroes, Admiral Togo Heihachiro who shared a hometown with one of the company’s founders.

Nikon Nikkorex 35 II

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The Nikon Nikkorex 35 II is the second of a new series of affordable, fixed-lens SLRs introduced in the 1960s and marketed as a budget alternative to Nippon Kogaku’s flagship camera: the legendary Nikon F. While the F was quickly gaining popularity for SLRs among photojournalists and other professional photographers, the Nikkorex line was designed to offer TTL (through-the-lens) capabilities to the general public at a much lower cost.

Konica FC-1

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The Konica FC-1 is the motorless sibling to the FS-1, the very first 35mm SLR to feature a built-in motor drive. The FC-1 belongs to Konica’s second attempt at an SLR system which was based around the AR lens mount and continued until the company ceased production of SLRs entirely in 1987.

Canon AE-1

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The Canon AE-1 was one of the very first affordable SLRs with automatic exposure available to the public. During the ’70s and ’80s, competition in the SLR market among Japanese manufacturers was intense and, having lost considerable market share to its biggest rival Nikon, Canon decided to overhaul their entire line of single lens reflex cameras. Nikon more or less had complete control over the professional SLR market at the time so Canon decided to launch its A-series of consumer cameras, the most popular of which was the AE-1. By cleverly simplifying the design and using cheaper materials, Canon were able to keep their costs low and ship out over one million units during its eight year production run to amateur photographers across the globe. Due to its ubiquity, simple construction, and reliability, the AE-1 remains one of the most common manual focus SLRs still in use today.