Vintage Cameras by Format

Vintage Cameras by Format

Read more about 110 film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

110 Film
Read more about 120 film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

120 Film
Read more about 126 film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

126 Film
Read more about 127 film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

127 Film
Read more about 35mm film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

135 Film
Read more about 620 film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

620 Film
Read more about digital cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

Digital
Read more about instant cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

Instant Film
Read more about miscellaneous film format cameras on Vintage Camera Lab

Other

Ansco Memo II Automatic

by

The Ansco Memo II Automatic is a 35mm half-frame camera introduced in 1967 by Ansco. The Memo II Automatic and the Ansco Memo Automatic from 1963 are actually the same exact camera, just re-released to reflect the name change from Ansco to General Aniline & Film (GAF). In turn, both cameras are rebadged versions of the Ricoh Auto Half and were manufactured by Ricoh for sale by Ansco. The Memo Automatic from 1963 is not to be confused with the original Ansco Memo, a 35mm half-frame box camera from 1927.

Ernemann Heag XV

by

Roughly the size of a large stack of playing cards, the Ernemann Heag XV is a pocket-sized folding camera introduced in 1911 by Ernemann. Founded by Heinrich Ernemann in 1889, the company produced both still and cinema cameras as well as projection equipment. After its defeat in the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to pay an enormous amount of money in reparations (about 442 billion USD in todayā€™s economy, a sum they only just finished paying off in 2010) which absolutely devastated its economy. Unfortunately, the German camera industry floundered during this period of hyperinflation, causing Ernemann to merge with three other companies (ICA, Goerz, and Contessa-Nettel) to form Zeiss Ikon.

Kodak EasyShare V570

by

The Kodak EasyShare V570 is a high-end compact digital camera introduced by Kodak in 2006 and the first ever dual lens digital camera to see production. With its classic lines and minimalist design, the V570 received a gold medal at the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Award and went on to spawn two more dual lens digital cameras: the Kodak V610 and the V705.

Kodak No. 2A Folding Pocket Brownie

by

The Kodak No. 2A Folding Pocket Brownie is an early folding camera introduced by Eastman Kodak Company in 1910 at a price of $7 (about $170 in todayā€™s money). The No. 2A is designed for the now defunct 116 film format which is very similar to 616 but with wider spool flanges. While we may think itā€™s a bit strange for Kodak to name this brick-sized camera a ā€œPocketā€ Brownie, it was considerably more portable than many of its contemporaries.

Canon Sure Shot WP-1

by

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.

Zeiss Ikon Contaflex I (861/24)

by

The Zeiss Ikon Contaflex I (861/24) is a fixed-lens SLR introduced by Zeiss Ikon AG Stuttgart in 1953. After the post World War II division of Germany, Zeiss Ikon also divided into Zeiss Ikon AG Stuttgart in the west while the remainder stayed in the east as VEB Zeiss Ikon Dresden. Unfortunately, the original factory in Dresden was heavily damaged by Allied bombing campaigns which left Zeiss Ikon no choice but to innovate. The result? The Contaflex: the very first 35mm SLR with a leaf shutter.

GOMZ Smena-2

by

The GOMZ Smena-2 is a plastic 35mm viewfinder camera introduced in 1954 by the Soviet State Optical-Mechanical Factory or GOMZ for short. Curiously, ā€œsmenaā€ in Russian translates into ā€œrelay,ā€ a fitting moniker since the 25 or so camera models that bear the Smena name were manufactured under three different brands from 1939 until the mid 1990s: MMZ (which eventually became BelOMO), GOMZ and, when GOMZ changed their name, LOMO. Smenas are made almost exclusively from plastic and were priced for mass consumption.

Spartus Spartaflex

by

The Spartus Spartaflex is a medium format twin lens reflex manufactured by the Spartus Camera Corporation of Chicago. Although I found a print ad from the 1940s pricing this camera outfit at an incredulous $47.91 (well over $800 in todayā€™s money), the Spartaflex is by no means a serious answer to the high-quality German TLRs (such as the Rolleicord IId) that had been dominating the market since the late ā€™20s.

Petri Racer

by

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 ā€œGREEN-O-MATICā€ viewfinder which visually sets it apart from other Japanese fixed-lens rangefinders.

Genos Rapid

by

The Genos Rapid is a German box camera introduced in 1950 by Genos and made of Bakelite, an early plastic. Based in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, the company was originally known as Norisan Apparatebau but after Germany was defeated in World War II (and the famous Nuremberg Trials had taken place), they decided to change their name to Genos Kamerabau.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000

by

The Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 is a variant of the very popular Yashica FX-3 which was introduced in 1979. With its mostly plastic body weighing in at only one pound, many photographers favored the FX-3 for its lightweight, compact design coupled with its ability to mount a wide range of exceptional optics including a superb lineup of legendary Carl Zeiss T* lenses.

Bolsey Model C

by

The Bolsey Model C is a 35mm twin lens reflex camera based on the Bolsey Model B. While the Bolsey Corp. of America produced still cameras, its founder, Ukrainian-born Yakob Bogopolsky (who later changed his name to Jacques Bolsey) is also famous for having founded the cinema camera manufacturer Bolex while living in Switzerland. Once he moved to the United States at the beginning of World War II, Mr. Bolsey produced a series of conventional and aerial cameras for the federal government.

Kiev-4A

by

The Kiev-4A is one of several professional grade 35mm ā€œKievā€ rangefinders produced by the Arsenal Factory, one of the oldest and most famous industrial factories in the former Soviet Union and modern day Ukraine. After the defeat of Germany in World War II, most of the surviving equipment and schematics from the Zeiss factory were removed from Dresden and taken to the newly reestablished Arsenal Factory in Kiev. Although primarily a military factory, Arsenal also produced civilian products including copies of cameras made by other manufacturers such as Zeiss Ikon, Hasselblad, and Nikon.

Toyoca Six

by

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 ā€œToyohashiā€ (the city in which the company was based at the time) and ā€œCamera.ā€ The other part of the name, ā€œTougodo,ā€ was named after one of Japanā€™s most famous naval heroes, Admiral Togo Heihachiro who shared a hometown with one of the companyā€™s founders.

VoigtlƤnder Bessy AK

by

The VoigtlƤnder Bessy AK is a viewfinder camera manufactured by Balda on behalf of fellow German optics company VoigtlƤnder which introduced the camera in 1965. So called to imply a (in reality, very faint) connection with the legendary Bessa name, the Bessy was a cutting edge camera designed for Kodakā€™s now obsolete 126 film cartridge, a format overwhelmingly popular at the time among amateur photographers who didnā€™t want to deal with the hassle of loading traditional roll films.

Nishika 3-D N8000

by

The Nishika 3-D N8000 is a lenticular stereo camera produced by Nishika Optical Systems based in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nevada. The N8000 is heavily based on the tongue twisted Nimstec Nimslo which was developed and produced in the 1980s by Nimstec until it went bankrupt and was bought out by Nishika. Nishika itself went belly up in the 1990s when it was investigated by the United States Federal Trade Commission for using a telemarketing scam to unload cameras on a gullible American public.

FED-5B

by

The FED-5B is an interchangeable lens rangefinder introduced in 1977 by FED, a state-run optical manufacturer named after Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police. The FED-5B and its siblings (including the FED-2) were all manufactured in what is now the Ukrainian city of Kharkov in an orphanage turned labor commune.

Kodak Hawkeye No. 2 Model C

by

The Kodak Hawkeye No. 2 Model C is a very basic box camera made of thick, leatherette-covered cardboard introduced in the mid 1920s. Interestingly, the Hawkeye, a name so commonly associated with Kodak, was actually originally manufactured by a little known outfit called the Boston Camera Company. The Boston Camera Company was bought out by the Blair Camera Company in 1890 which was then in turn bought by the rapidly expanding Eastman Kodak Company nearly a decade later in 1899.

Polaroid Land Model 95A

by

The Polaroid Land Model 95A is a variant of the Model 95, the first of the flagship Land Cameras (named after Polaroid founder Edwin Land) and the very first practical instant film camera in history. Polaroid is synonymous with instant film and Edwin Landā€™s name adorned Polaroidā€™s most advanced instant cameras for well over 30 years until he finally retired from the company in 1982.

Nikon Nikkorex 35 II

by

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 Kogakuā€™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.

Kodak Jiffy Six 20

by

When it was introduced, the Kodak Jiffy Six 20 was marketed by Eastman Kodak as the simplest, most user-friendly folding camera ever made. Up until that point, most folding cameras were of the same basic design (example: Kodak No. 3A Autographic). They were relatively difficult to handle, complex, and required users to manually unfold the camera and extend the lens in order to take photos. In the spirit of simplicity, the Jiffy boasts a simple two button operation. The first small metal button can be found on the film advance knobā€™s side of the camera and releases the front plate, causing the metal struts on either side to snap into place and automatically extend the lens. The second button is the shutter lever which can be found on the side of the front plate once extended.

Kodak Brownie Hawkeye

by

The Kodak Brownie Hawkeye is a simple plastic box camera produced from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. In addition to being made in its flagship factory in New York, the Brownie Hawkeye was also manufactured in Canada and France by its international subsidiaries. Over the years, there have been a significant number of Kodak cameras called the ā€œBrownie;ā€ this Hawkeye is one of the most popular models ever to bear the name.

Konica FC-1

by

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 Konicaā€™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.

Balda Super Baldina

by

The Balda Super Baldina name has actually been used on two different cameras, one is a folding rangefinder introduced by Balda Kamera-Werk in 1938 and the other is the one pictured above: a fixed-lens rangefinder from the mid 1950s. Both incarnations of the Super Baldina have been released alongside view-finder only ā€œnormalā€ Baldinas.

Kodak Disc 6100

by

The Kodak Disc 6100 is a relatively high-end camera produced during Eastman Kodakā€™s foray into what they expected to be a revolutionary new product: disc film. Unlike the many different formats of the past, disc film was, as its name suggests, contained within a plastic diskette that users could easily load into their cameras. Within the cartridge was a circular piece of film upon which a total of 15 photographs could be exposed. Despite the supposed convenience and ease of use, disc film was a complete flop. Although the tiny negatives contained a fair amount of detail, graininess and lackluster image quality ultimately forced Kodak to quietly kill off the doomed format.