japanese camera – Vintage Camera Lab

Kalimar Reflex

June 25, 2024March 13, 2019 by ivanlo

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.

Olympus XA

June 25, 2024July 26, 2016 by ivanlo

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.