Bolsey family camera models In my basement, two walls are lined with IKEA Billy cabinets; all have glass doors to keep out dust, which works in theory. My cameras are neatly set on the shelves, which is where it gets tricky. Organizing the cameras can be done by country, type, format, age, and whatnot. Or, perhaps, a smorgasbord of aspects,...
Kodak Pony camera Preamble A few weeks ago I wrote about the Smena camera line, of which I had two models. The early model, known simply as Smena, wasn’t in hand. Enter Maxsold. Maxsold runs local online auctions in Canada and some areas in the US. It is mainly meant for estate or downsizing sales, where, after the valuables are...
Ilford Advocate camera In the olden days, before everything was made in China, each country had its own consumer-goods manufacturing facilities, and it took pride in them. It was the same as when each town or village had its own main-street shops, which are now lost to Walmart and power centers. In this case, once photography for the masses emerged,...
International Detrola Corporation Detrola – Detrola camera Next on the viewfinder shelf is a familiar-looking camera: a Detrola. I say ‘a Detrola’, as the company made ten + one models, where the ten were almost identical, and the single one was completely different. While researching the Detrola models, I found that online articles agree on most details but disagree sharply...
KMZ Narciss camera Preamble Several lifetimes ago, I worked in the industrial cutting tools industry, and as in other trades, tales were passed down from generation to generation. One such legend was that the Americans were invited to a machine tool exhibition in Russia, so they sent a steel rod as thick as a human hair. Once the show ended,...
GOMZ/LOMO Smena camera After celebrating the princes of the Soviet camera industry and praising the GOMZ/LOMO’s outstanding products, it is time to pay tribute to the millions of blue-collar cameras in the Smena line. GOMZ of Leningrad was the first camera maker in the Soviet Union, dating back to the 1930s Fotokor. It was temporarily named VOOMP and later LOMO, but...
GOMZ/LOMO Voskhod camera Last week I wrote about the Sokol camera, which is the first Soviet model I appreciated and really liked. So today I picked up a senior sister, the LOMO Voskhod. The Voskhod is fifteen years older than the Sokol, and a far cry from the run-of-the-mill, mass-produced, lacklustre, and boring Soviet cameras. The maker, GOMZ/VOOMP/LOMO of St....
GOMZ / LOMO Sokol camera I pull out cameras for review shelf by shelf, so I now clear the compact viewfinders and rangefinders. All that, when I avoid the big boys’ cameras, say the Canon Canonet, Minolta Hi-Matic, Olympus 35 or Yashica Electro series; common to them is that each of the lines consists of a header name followed by...
Acro R- Marvel cameras After trying to untangle the Ciro and Utility brands, I pulled a shy, unassuming camera off the shelf, only to realize I am still in the same quicksand. This time it is a Marvel. In my database, the Marvel model name is found on eleven cameras. Discounting the Hit, Unis-Broutin and Wirgin, it leaves eight US-made...
Utility Manufacturing Company Falcon cameras Last week I wrote about the peculiar affair of the Ciro 35 camera, and I thought I was done with intertwining camera brands. It didn’t take long to prove me wrong. Today’s camera is a Falcon by Utility Manufacturing Company, whose history leaves Ciro in the dust. It is a smorgasbord of brands and...