This is a Gamma II, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Gamma Officine Meccaniche de Precisione in Rome, Italy between the years 1947 and 1950.  The Gamma II was the first in a series of Gamma cameras and the only one with a unique bayonet lens mount.  Later Gamma cameras… The post Gamma II (1947) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is a Chinon Bellami, a compact 35mm point and shoot camera made by Chinon International Corp in Tokyo, Japan starting in 1980.  The Chinon Bellami was one of the smallest full frame 35mm cameras ever made and has a design and feature set very comparable to the Olympus XA2… The post Chinon Bellami (1980) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is a Pentacon Super, a 35mm SLR made by Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden between the years 1968 and 1972.  The Pentacon Super was the sole attempt by Pentacon to build a professional level SLR.  It had a number of features such as an interchangeable metered prism, open aperture metering,… The post Pentacon Super (1968) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

In the early days of still photography, the idea of a variable focal length lens was fantasy.  Since the dawn of photography, lens designers, engineers, and mathematicians worked at calculating optical formulas to correct for astigmatism, coma, spherical aberrations, and a vast number of other optical anomalies in lenses of… The post Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 40-80mm f/2.8 appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is a Fujifilm GF670 Professional, a folding dual format medium format rangefinder camera, jointly made by Cosina and Fujifilm of Japan.  The Fujifilm GF670 went on sale in March 2010 and was one of the very last Fujifilm cameras and shoots both 6cm x 6cm and 6cm x 7cm… The post Fujifilm GF670 Professional (2010) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is an Ilford Witness, a 35mm rangefinder camera made in 1953 by Peto Scott Electrical Instruments for Ilford of London, England.  The Witness was a very ambitious camera, first designed in 1947 by ex employees of Leitz and Zeiss-Ikon.  It incorporated a unique hybrid screw/bayonet lens mount, focal plane… The post Ilford Witness (1953) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is a Paxette Reflex Automatic, a 35mm single lens reflex camera made by Braun Nurnberg in Nuremberg, West Germany between the years 1958 and 1960.  The Braun Paxette Automatic was an SLR version of the long running Braun Paxette series which consisted of a confusing number of scale focus… The post Braun Paxette Reflex Automatic (1958) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is the Sport (Спорт), a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by Gosudarstvennyi Optiko-Mekhanicheskii Zavod (GOMZ for short) near Leningrad, Russia between the years 1935 and 1941.  The GOMZ Sport is an evolution of an earlier prototype camera called the Gelveta.  The GOMZ Sport is credited as the Soviet… The post GOMZ Sport (1935) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

This is a Steinheil Casca II, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by C. A. Steinheil Söhne in Munich, West Germany starting in 1949.  It was an update to the original Casca I from 1948 adding a coupled rangefinder, a new lens mount, and having a few other changes.  The Casca… The post Steinheil Casca II (1949) appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more

When Oskar Barnack completed the first Leica prototype in the mid 1920s, his goal was to make a high quality compact camera that could make high quality images using double perforated 35mm film.  At the time, the idea of a mass produced 35mm camera was one that nobody was thinking… The post A Better Way to Load Your Leica appeared first on mike eckman dot com ..read more