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1970s

Rollei A110

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Rollei A110

The Rollei A110 is a high-end subminiature camera introduced by Rollei in 1974. After nearly ten years of the Rollei-16, which used the company’s own proprietary 16mm film cassette, Rollei decided to abandon the ultimately unsuccessful format and tasked legendary designer Heinz Waaske (who designed other innovative and groundbreaking models such as the as the Rollei 35, Rollei A26, and Rolleimatic) to create the A110 as the first of a new generation of subminiatures to use Kodak’s vastly more popular 110 film cartridge instead.

Minox 110 S

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Minox 110 S

The Minox 110 S is a subminiature 110 format camera introduced in 1975. This slim little camera was first presented to the public alongside the revolutionary Minox 35 EL at Photokina 1974 which unfortunately meant that it was pretty much completely overshadowed by its bigger brother. Produced by Balda on behalf of Minox, the 110 S also had an alternate life as the Balda 1000 but with different lenses. In an ocean of inexpensive 110 cameras like Eastman Kodak‘s Pocket Instamatic line, the Minox 110 S is of surprisingly high quality. Despite its plastic construction, there’s nothing about it that feels flimsy or cheap.

Rollei A26

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Rollei A26

The Rollei A26 is a compact viewfinder camera introduced by Rollei in 1972 for the 126 film format. Designed by Heinz Waaske—the father of the legendary Rollei 35—and built just two years after Rollei established its factory in Singapore, the A26 is the first of a small number of quirky compact cameras with an orange-on-black color scheme which also includes 1974’s A110 and the Rolleimatic of 1980.

Olympus XA

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Olympus XA

The Olympus XA is a sleek compact 35mm rangefinder introduced in 1979 by Olympus. After succeeding with a long line of compact 35mm half-frame “Pen” cameras, Rollei struck back with the amazing Rollei 35: a camera as small as any Pen but able to produce full-frame images. Olympus continued on with the newly outclassed Pen for over a decade before they finally came back with a real answer to Germany: the Olympus XA. When it was released, the XA was the smallest rangefinder ever made and is still one of the smallest today.

Hasselblad 500 C/M

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The Hasselblad 500 C/M is a medium format single lens reflex camera introduced in 1970 by Victor Hasselblad AB in Göteborg, Sweden. This model is one of the later models in Hasselblad’s V-System, a wildly popular camera system that boasts a wide variety of modular parts like viewfinders, film backs, cranks, and, of course, lenses. The 500 C/M is based on the original 500 C from the late 1950s: the first of many modified Hasselblad cameras to be taken into space by NASA astronauts.

LOMO Smena Symbol

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The LOMO Smena Symbol is a simple 35mm viewfinder camera introduced by LOMO in 1970. The Symbol belongs to the long-lived Smena (Russian for “relay” or “young generation”) line of cameras that were manufactured by three different Soviet factories (MMZ, GOMZ, and lastly, LOMO) from 1939 until the mid 1990s, effectively outlasting the Soviet Union itself. Smenas like the Symbol, 8M, and the 2 are mostly made of plastic and were purposely designed to be inexpensive.

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.

Rollei XF 35

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The Rollei XF 35 was released in 1974 by Rollei-Werke Franke & Heidecke as the latest addition to the Rollei 35 series which, at the time, were the world’s smallest full-frame 35mm cameras. Compact full-frame cameras like the Rollei 35 series and the Olympus XA pretty much single-handedly destroyed the half-frame 35mm market as they proved that a full-frame camera could be made just as small without compromising image quality.

FED-5B

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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.

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.

LOMO Smena-8M

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The LOMO Smena-8M was introduced in 1970 by the Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Union. The Russian term “smena” translates into “young generation” or “relay” which is interesting because the 8M’s 25 year production outlasted the Soviet Union itself. The Smena name has existed since 1939 when the original Smena, a 35mm folding camera, was introduced by GOMZ, one of the state-run optics factories that eventually merged to become LOMO. Smenas are made almost exclusively from plastic and were designed to be inexpensive. As a testament to its success, there have been roughly 25 camera models bearing the Smena name starting from before WWII to the mid ’90s.

Polaroid Big Shot

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The Polaroid Big Shot is an unusual portrait camera made by Polaroid in the early ’70s that is popular among photographers and collectors for its eccentric shape and singular purpose. American artist Andy Warhol was particularly fond of the ungainly Big Shot and used it for much of the portraiture that inspired his iconic paintings, drawings, and prints.

Kodak Handle

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The Kodak Handle was produced during Kodak’s brief and ultimately doomed attempt at instant film. Polaroid took Kodak to court for patent infringement in 1981 in spite of some crucial differences in Kodak’s approach to instant film and instant cameras and eventually won. Defeated, Kodak was ordered to cease production of all instant film and related products (including the Handle) as well as pay Polaroid $925 million (around $1.5 billion in today’s money).

Pentax Auto 110

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The Pentax Auto 110 is the smallest single lens reflex camera ever made and the only camera with interchangeable lenses ever produced for the 110 film cartridge. A true camera system, the Auto 110 has six available lenses: 18mm, 24mm, 50mm, 70mm, 18mm fixed-focus, and 20-40mm zoom (all f/2.8), two external flashes, an electric film winder, and a slew of macro adapters, filters, diopters, and lens hoods. A third party 1.7x teleconverter was also produced by the German company Soligor.

Nikon Nikkormat FT3

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In terms of serious cameras, this is my genesis: the Nikon Nikkormat FT3. My father bought this beautiful camera as a young man in Hong Kong and gave it to me when I began getting serious about photography in college. I’ve spent many hours shooting with this camera and have even lugged it overseas on assignment to various developing countries as my backup and film body. It’s been a sturdy and dependable friend for many years now and has taught me many things about photography, the most important of which is patience.

Canon Canonet QL17 G-III

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In 1961, Canon—then an upmarket camera company—shocked the industry by debuting the Canonet line, a series of modestly-priced compact rangefinders. The very first Canonet model completely sold out in just two hours while worldwide sales hit the one million mark in a mere two and a half years, an auspicious beginning for what would be a wildly popular line of cameras that would span over two decades. The Canon Canonet QL17 G-III is the final high-end model of the Canonet series.

Konica C35 EF

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The Konica C35 EF is the very first compact 35mm camera to feature a built-in flash. The “C35” in its name stands for “Compact 35mm” and the “EF” standing for “Electronic Flash.” In Japan, this camera is known by its nickname “Pikkari” which, as far as I can tell, translates roughly into “glittery brightness.”

BelOMO Chaika-II Anniversary

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The BelOMO Chaika-II Anniversary is a special edition of the BelOMO Chaika-II that was produced by the Belarus Optical and Mechanical Enterprise in its Minsk factory to commemorate the 50th year of the Soviet Union. The Russian word chaika translates into “seagull” which was the call sign for Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman ever to go into space and the person who this line of cameras is named after.

Polaroid Pronto! Sears Special

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The Polaroid Pronto! Sears Special was sold exclusively at Sears department stores and is a variant of the Pronto!, Polaroid’s first non-folding Land Camera to use SX-70 instant film. Polaroid’s earlier instant films required users to peel the negative away from the print which, unfortunately, caused many photogenic locations to become littered with discarded negatives, much to the chagrin of Polaroid founder Edwin Land. Land addressed this concern by developing SX-70 film, which did not use separate negatives and therefore produced no excess waste with each exposure.

Kodak Colorburst 100

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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

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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

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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.