Category: Kowa

Kowa SE Kowa had been at the rear end of the Japanese camera industry. I hold a camera that was made in 1964, so one would expect some reference about it in the printed guides. Not so. Kowa, an old established industrial company, branched into the camera trade in 1958 for a short 30-year period. Early models were compact viewfinders...

Kowaflex E 1961 saw the first man in space, Yury Gagarin, who had the merit to have a Zorki 4 special edition name after him. Another first happened that year, the first instant-return mirror in an SLR camera. It didn’t go as far as having a focal plane shutter but was an interesting combination of a leaf shutter in an...