April 4, 2024

Futura Standard

Futura Standard I look at cameras daily; most are similar, different only on the margin. Now and then, a camera stands out, which is the case here. The outstanding cameras have a common denomination: a modest manufacturer of a few models with different take on technology and features. Offering an uncommon feature to a mass-market item is a tall order,...

Categories 35 mm/Germany/Rangefinder Comment: 1

March 29, 2024

Iloca Rapid

Iloca Rapid / Iloca Quick Iloca was a short-lived camera maker, lasting for about a decade in the 1950s. It was established in Hamburg, a city known for its heavy industry and peppered with several very early camera makers. The company was founded as a machine shop by Walter Illing, who lent it his name styled as Ilca, short for...

Categories 35 mm/Germany/Iloca/Rangefinder/Viewfinder Comment: 1

March 20, 2024

Carl Braun Paxette

Carl Braun Paxette The Carl Braun Paxette seems to have been a popular camera, judging by the number of available cameras on eBay and the abundance of online articles about it. All began with a Pax, a 1950 box model wishing peace upon a troubled post-war world. The closely named Paxina followed in the same year as a no-frills 120-format...

Categories 35 mm/Carl Braun/Germany/Rangefinder/Viewfinder Comments: 0

March 19, 2024

Balda Baldina

Balda Baldina Balda carried over the Baldina name from a 1935 klapp model, but this model has nothing to do with the original. The Baldina came in three flavours: Baldina, a viewfinder, mock rangefinder Baldina B, a viewfinder with an integral meter Super Baldina, a rangefinder. The viewfinder and the rangefinder look the same and share the exact top, but...

Categories 35 mm/Balda/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0

March 18, 2024

Balda Baldessa

Balda Baldessa For the past half-century, I have written about cameras and camera makers. The evolution of two distinct groups, the post-war Japanese and the prewar German, follows a clear pattern. Manufacturers within both groups follow a pattern as if fate was preset for them. Balda, a camera maker who has been active for about fifty years in the middle...

Categories 35 mm/Balda/Germany/Rangefinder Comments: 2

March 13, 2024

King Regula Cita

King Regula Cita King Regula made cameras under different name legacies. The early line was the Regula, with later sub-lines like Sprint / Sprinty / Sprintic, Regulette, Picca, Olymatic / Olympia, and Cita. The Cita was meant to be a higher-class camera and priced as such. Kerkmann praises the Cita quality, but the only tangible reference is to the surface...

Categories 35 mm/Germany/King Regula/Rangefinder Comments: 0

March 9, 2024

King Regula camera family list

King Regula camera list King was established in Germany in 1936 as a machine shop and entered the camera world in the early 1950s. They made a long list of Regula-named camera models, from entry-level viewfinders to rangefinders, with or without light meters, and several pocket, 126-format and disk models. My records show only one box camera (made by Vredeborch)...

Categories 110/35 mm/Germany/King Regula/Rangefinder/Viewfinder Comment: 1

March 5, 2024

United States Camera USC 35

United States Camera USC 35 In the early last century, there were two photographic centres in the US. One was Rochester, NY, headquarters of Kodak and its predecessors, and the other was Chicago, IL, where a slew of small companies entered the up-and-coming industry. The very early ones were Burke and James in 1897, DeVry in 1913, and projector makers ...

Categories 35 mm/Germany/King Regula/USA/Viewfinder Comments: 0

February 29, 2024

Montgomery Ward Ward 35

Montgomery Ward  Ward 35 A long time ago, when the world was still flat, buyers had few and complex options. If one wanted to hang a shelf, it involved visiting the lumber yard for the board, the hardware store for a bracket, and a paint store for the finishes. All that if lived in the city. The upside was that...

Categories 35 mm/Beauty/Viewfinder/Ward Comments: 0

February 26, 2024

Franka Franka

Franka Franka Franka Kamerawerk was one of the early German camera makers, established in 1909. The first models were drop bed folders, then graduated into smaller Klapp-style cameras. It is odd, but the company did not have box cameras on its lineup, as was common with most camera makers’ evolution. In the post-war years, they added monoblock cameras under Bonafix,...

Categories 35 mm/Franka/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0