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,...
Steiner Brelland – Hunter 35 A couple of almost identical cameras have landed on my bench. The Hunter 35, a 35mm rangefinder, and the Brelland, a 35mm viewfinder. Other than the viewer and the engraved name, both are the same. Tracing back the manufacturer was easy, although searching for ‘Hunter Camera’ yielded tons of hunting/trail/wildlife cameras. However, once I ignored...
Corfield Periflex The story of Corfield Cameras resembles the case of Clarus in the US. Both companies began about the same time as the brainchild or obsession of an undercapitalized founder trying to punch above his weight. Both created a product without previous experience in the field, both companies were relocated from their breeding grounds, both needed external funding, which...
Kodak Instamatic family list Going through my camera shelves, I have done two #126 format cameras, the Dacora Instacora and the Ricoh 126 C Automatic. Going from there to the Kodak Instamatics, I realized that there are more than what I bargained for. Koddak made just under Instamatic models, so enclosed is the list The Instamatic was made to be...
Houghton Ticka User manual at Butkus, incomplete User manual I downloaded from somewhere. In 1865 Alice sat under a tree in the meadow where a white rabbit was rushing by. That seemed of no particular significance, save for a rabbit carrying a large pocket watch and grumbling about being late. From here, Alice lumbered into Wonderland to become world famous,...
R.F. Hunter Gilbert R.F. Hunter Gilbert current value In the middle of the 20th century, RF Hunter was a photo equipment distributor in London, selling German-made cameras before the war and both East and West German models after. Names that come to mind are Steiner and Purma et al. The Gilbert is the single camera that Hunter made, proudly designed...
Ensign Auto-Range 220 Ensign Auto-Range 220 current value It is not only the German camera manufacturers who went through mergers and amalgamations. The Brits had their own fair share. The company known as Ensign had its roots back in the 1830s, with Houghton, Butcher, Barnet, and Ross being the prominent names shared through the years. The street where they have...