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September 3, 2026

GOMZ / LOMO Sokol

GOMZ / LOMO Sokol 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 an...

Categories 35 mm/GOMZ / LOMO/Rangefinder/USSR Comments: 0
August 25, 2026

Acro R – Marvel cameras

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...

Categories 127/Rangefinder/Sears/USA Comments: 0
August 21, 2026

Utility Manufacturing Company

Utility Manufacturing Company 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 models, proving...

Categories 120/127/Medium Format/USA/Viewfinder Comments: 0
August 18, 2026

Teiho Optical Blitz 35

Teiho Optical Blitz 35 In the endless list of post-war Japanese camera startups, there are some names that had made a splash, and some rare as hen’s teeth. The camera on my desk today is one of the latter. Japan did not have a substantial camera industry prior to WWII. The push that had resulted in a couple of hundred...

Categories 35 mm/Japan/Obscure/Rangefinder Comments: 0
August 16, 2026

Graflex / Ciro, Ciro 35

Graflex / Ciro, Ciro 35 The camera on my desk is a Ciro 35. On the face of it, writing about it should be a walk in the park, but there is more than that. There were cases where different companies sold cameras under the same model name; see Zeiss tributaries where the companies were amalgamated, but here it is...

Categories 35 mm/Candid Camera/Ciro/Graflex/Rangefinder/USA Comments: 0
July 26, 2026

Candid Camera Fifty Five

Candid Camera Perfex Fifty-Five Candid Camera family list Perfex Speed Perfex Forty-Four Perfex Fifty-Five   The two early models made by Candid Camera of America were not a stellar success. The first model, the Perfex Speed, was a unique, unorthodox device that defied most conventions in the camera world. Production lasted only a year, and it was replaced by a...

Categories 35 mm/Candid Camera/Rangefinder/USA Comments: 0
July 26, 2026

Candid Camera Forty Four

Candid Camera Perfex Forty-Four Candid Camera family list Perfex Speed Perfex Forty-Four Perfex Fifty-Five   The first camera by Candid Camera Corporation of America was the Perfex Speed of 1938. Hastily designed by outsiders to the trade, it ended as an exercise in how not to design a practical camera. As a mitigating note, the timing of its introduction was...

Categories 35 mm/Candid Camera/Rangefinder/USA Comments: 0
July 25, 2026

Candid Camera Perfex Speed

Candid Camera Perfex Speed Candid Camera family list Perfex Speed Perfex Forty-Four Perfex Fifty-Five   I’m holding the Perfex Speed, and I’m not sure where to begin. At first glance, it seems assembled from unrelated parts, and it remotely resembles the concept of a camera as we know it. Indeed, it has a lens, a viewer, and a superstructure styled after...

Categories 35 mm/Candid Camera/Rangefinder/USA Comments: 0
July 10, 2026

Candid Camera Corporation

Candid Camera Corporation family list Candid Camera family list Perfex Speed Perfex Forty-Four Perfex Fifty-Five The company Candid Camera of America was born in 1938, in the Silent Generation, a time when science had rapidly added many technologies that are taken for granted today. The TV was just a decade old, not yet commercial, as were liquid-fuel rockets. FM radio...

Categories 35 mm/Candid Camera/Cine/Rangefinder/USA Comments: 0
June 24, 2026

Foth Derby camera

Foth Derby camera C.F. Foth of Gdansk/Danzig and later Berlin and Paris was a short-lived camera maker that offered a line of three camera series for a little over a decade. Most of Foth’s camera models did not gain prominence in camera history; the one model still seen is the Derby, which seems to have been its bestseller. There are...

Categories 127/Germany/Pop out/Viewfinder Comments: 0

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