Vintage Cameras by Country of Origin

Kodak Colorburst 100

April 1, 2024August 12, 2012 by ivanlo

The Kodak Colorburst 100 was made during Kodak’s relatively brief foray into instant film. Kodak’s instant film was designed to be exposed from the back which meant that they could make their instant cameras more compact than Polaroid‘s which had to accommodate a mirror for their front-exposing film. Unfortunately, none of that mattered when Polaroid filed a lawsuit against Kodak for patent infringement in 1981. After nearly a decade of deliberation, Kodak eventually lost in court and had to cease production of all instant film and related products as well as pay $925 million in damages to Polaroid (around $1.5 billion in today’s money).

Kodak Instamatic X-35

April 1, 2024August 11, 2012 by ivanlo

The Kodak Instamatic X-35 is a plastic viewfinder camera designed to take Kodak’s then-popular 126 cartridge film. It’s got a 41mm f/8 Kodar lens with two focus zones: two to six feet and six feet to infinity. The shutter has two speeds: 1/90 and 1/45 for flash photography.

Yashica Electro 35 GS

April 1, 2024August 10, 2012 by ivanlo

The Yashica Electro 35 GS is a variant of the wildly popular Yashica Electro 35, the first ever camera with full electronic automatic exposure. The GS model you see above also sports gold-plated electrical contacts and boasts a “Color Yashinon” 45mm f/1.7 lens which is completely identical to the standard (greyscale?) Yashinon but was named as such by their marketing department to capitalize on the growing popularity of color film at the time.

Olympus Infinity Twin

April 1, 2024August 6, 2012 by ivanlo

The Olympus Infinity Twin (also known outside the US as the AF-1 Twin) is unusual among compact point and shoots in that it has two lenses (a wide-angle 35mm f/3.5 and a telephoto 70mm f/6.3) that you can switch between with a touch of a tiny red button. It also inherits the rugged body designed for the world’s first weatherproof automatic 35mm camera: the original Olympus Infinity/AF-1 which makes it even more unique.

No.1 Pocket Kodak

April 1, 2024August 1, 2012 by ivanlo

The No.1 Pocket Kodak is designed to take Kodak’s then-popular but ultimately short-lived autographic film which allows you to use the camera’s metal stylus (which is usually found attached to the brackets just next to the shutter lever but is missing from mine) to record information about the photograph you just took by opening the squat T-shaped window on the rear panel of the camera and writing directly onto the margin of the negative via carbon transfer paper. Regular 120 film also works, of course.

Agfa B-2 Cadet

April 1, 2024July 31, 2012 by ivanlo

The Agfa B-2 Cadet is a simple box camera introduced in 1937 by Agfa. Even though the Cadet is a German camera designed in Germany, it was actually manufactured in Binghamton, New York in the factory of American camera company Ansco since they were owned by Agfa at the time. In fact, the company was known as Agfa-Ansco from 1928 until 1941 when the United States entered the Second World War and seized control of Ansco back from the Germans.