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waist level viewfinder

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.

Agfa Flexilette

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The Agfa Flexilette is an uncommon 35mm twin lens reflex camera introduced by Agfa in 1960 and only produced for about a year. Since the vast majority of twin lens reflex cameras are medium format like the Rolleicord, the Flexilette—along with its successor: the Optima Reflex—joins other oddballs like the Bolsey Model C as one of the only 35mm twin lens reflex cameras ever made.

Spartus Spartaflex

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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 today’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 ’20s.

Genos Rapid

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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 T4 Super D

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The Yashica T4 Super D is one of the last models of the T* series of compact cameras made by Kyocera (who owned Yashica at the time) in partnership with renowned German lens manufacturer Carl Zeiss AG. All cameras in this series used high quality Carl Zeiss Tessar lenses with the legendary T* coating which meant superb image quality in a small package. The Yashica T4 and its variants were also sold as the Yashica T5 and the Kyocera T Proof.