Classic & Historical Cameras
Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
Jason Schneider Apr 01, 2006 0 comments

Renowned "camera collector" Jason Schneider is out there scouring camera stores, Internet sites, and camera shows to bring you the best bargains in user collectibles, recent gems, and vintage gear.
--Editor

Presuming you haven't been meditating in a cave in Tibet for the past few years, you know that the prices of medium format...

Jason Schneider May 01, 2006 0 comments

While I am hardly a charter member of the anti-digitist (I shoot about 70 percent digital these days, mostly with a Canon EOS 20D, and I'm currently nursing a bad case of 5D lust) I will confess to being a long-time Nikon nut. When I acquired my first Nikon F in the early 1960s, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, and there are at least half a dozen Nikon cameras on my...

Jason Schneider Jul 01, 2006 0 comments

Before launching into paeans of praise for the Nikon F, which, in my arrogant opinion, may well be the most important 35mm SLR of the 20th century, I must confess to being a tiny bit biased. When I acquired my first F as a teen-ager back in 1961 (alas after trading in a mint Leica IIIg with a 50mm f/2.8 collapsible Elmar) I knew I had finally arrived. I strutted around lower...

Jason Schneider Apr 01, 2007 0 comments

The redoubtable Nikon F3 was scorned by traditionalists in 1980, but variants of this modern classic remained in production for over 21 years--longer than any other pro 35mm SLR.

When the sleek, ergonomically contoured, ruggedly reliable Nikon F3 debuted back in '80, it was greeted with cheers and jeers. Some long-time Nikon fans were gratified to have an...

Rick Shimonkevitz Mar 01, 2005 0 comments

Imagine a hand holdable single lens reflex camera that has front movements similar to a view camera to allow control of plane of focus. If you think that's a pretty modern concept, you are only about 100 years too late. The Soho Reflex camera, made from 1905 up to the 1940s, was just such an item. Manufactured by Kershaw of Leeds, England, and marketed under several...

John Wade Mar 01, 2010 0 comments

In 1947, the English Wray Optical Company took out a patent on an amazing and innovative 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR). It had an eye-level penta-prism viewfinder, instant return mirror, Through The Lens (TTL) metering, and a built-in clockwork motor drive—four features never before seen on this type of camera.

The design was acquired from an...

Roger W. Hicks Nov 08, 2012 Published: Oct 01, 2012 0 comments
Limited production, exquisite fit and finish, and usability, too: how much more does it take to qualify a camera as a classic, or a collectible? Maybe a good dash of eccentricity; and the NPC 195 qualifies on all counts.

The fortunes of NPC (Newton Plastics Corporation) rose and fell with those of Polaroid. They were probably best known to most photographers for their Polaroid proofing backs using the late Marty Forscher’s patents for optical-fiber transfer of the image, though they also made a superb tripod head of unique design (the Pro-Head), a microscope camera, and more. They did a lot of government work, including for NASA, but a few years ago, after decades of success, they closed their doors.

S. "Fritz" Takeda Sep 01, 2009 0 comments

The 31st Used Camera Show 2009 took place for six days earlier this year at the Exhibition Floor of the Matsuya department store, Ginza, Tokyo.

S. "Fritz" Takeda Oct 01, 2007 1 comments

Some 15,000 visitors attended the 29th Used Camera Show sponsored by ICS (Import Camera Society) at Matsuya department store's convention hall, in which 19 leading used camera shops in Tokyo participated earlier this year. According to the show's organizers, the show generated some 15 percent more traffic compared with last year, despite a predicted decline in the...

S. "Fritz" Takeda Jul 01, 2006 0 comments

Tokyo, Japan--Ginza is Tokyo's Fifth Avenue. Cartier, Chaumet, Dior, Hermes, Tiffany, Harry Winston, and all the other flamboyant luxury stores are there. Department stores are there as well, but unlike their counterparts in the Western world, they are quality shops with many chauffeur-driven limousines in the parking lot. One of the most fashionable department stores...

John Wade Jan 15, 2013 Published: Dec 01, 2012 9 comments
Making panoramic pictures in the digital age is easy. But it’s a lot more fun to use classic panoramic cameras, many of which can still be bought and used today.

The first panoramic camera was the Megaskop, made in 1844 to produce daguerreotypes on silver-plated copper plates, 4.7x17.5” wide. Later, there were Cirkut cameras, made first by the Rochester Panoramic Camera Company in 1904 and later by Kodak. These cameras were, and still are, used to produce super-wide school or sports club pictures. As the exposure was made, a clockwork motor rotated the camera on its tripod while inside the film traveled from one spool to another, past a slit at the focal plane.

Roger W. Hicks Feb 01, 2009 8 comments

The Germans notoriously have a word for the guilty pleasure of enjoying another’s misfortune or embarrassment: Schadenfreude.

S. "Fritz" Takeda Sep 01, 2004 0 comments

KATSUMIDO at Ginza is the biggest used camera shop in Tokyo, specializing in rare items in mint condition. KATSUMIDO is known as the most expensive and the most quality-intensive used camera boutique in Tokyo. In the central oblong showcase of the store, the best and the rarest cameras...