Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: tom b on January 21, 2014, 06:08:24 pm
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All of my cameras have been Japanese, over forty years.
Interesting…
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No Kodak Brownies or Polaroid cameras? All my "serious" cameras have been Japanese, but then again, I never had the interest in Leica or Hasselblad-priced cameras. But I did have a hand-me-down Brownie and a Polaroid.
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My very first was a Zeiss Baby Ikonta folding camera that my big brother had bought in a pawn shop. German.
I think the Kodak 3C I got some years later was also German-built, but I'm not sure.
Once I got a Pentax, all of my 35mm cameras have been Japanese, but I also had a Speed Graphic (American), a Zone VI 4x5" view camera (American), and an 8x10" view camera of unknown origin.
My last two film cameras were Pentax 67II and Mamiya 6, both Japanese.
Once I went over to the Dark Side (i.e., digital), Pentax was too slow to move to serious digital, so I moved to Canon (10D, then 5D, then 5DII, plus three Canon P&S cameras).
There was one point in film days when I suddenly realized that not a single camera of the five I then owned had been manufactured within the past twenty years. Not true now with digital.
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My first "real" camera was from Hong Kong in 1958 when Hong Kong was British - a Halina A1 TLR. I then had a few Russian and East German cheapo 35mm cameras and my current MF is a Rollieflex 6003.
But, apart from that, virtually everything else has been Japanese (or at least from Japanese companies - some probably actually made in other Far East countries).
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All of my cameras have been Japanese, over forty years.
Do you mean the country where the camera was manufactured, or the country where the manufacturer has its home office? A long time ago, they were almost always the same, but there were exceptions even then, ie the Kodak Retina which goes back 80 years and was manufactured in Germany. Today, it seems like the camera being manufactured in the country where the company is headquartered is more nearly the exception than the rule.
Jim
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I had some garage sale Kodaks, but my first good camera was an Argus C3 bought from the used camera department at the drugstore that was walking distance from my house. It was made in Michigan.
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I used to work within walking distance of the old Argus building in Ann Arbor. When I was a kid my mom had a C3, though I rarely saw her use it. Don't remember what became of it either.
I've attached a photo taken with the C3 of my mom in 1957 while en route via ship from the US to Scotland (her home country). I originally thought she'd used my dad's Retina on this trip, but I recently found a letter from her to my dad, sent from Scotland, in which she mentions the Argus.
-Dave-
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Looking at where my gear comes from:
- Japan: Nikon, Sigma, Sony, Ebony, Fuji, Epson,
- Germany: Leica, Schneider, Rodenstock, Zeiss (manufactured in Japan though),
- US: Apple, RRS, Adobe software, Betterlight, Iridient, Dell, Lexar, OWC, Promise, Nine Volt,
- France: Gitzo, DxO, AutoPano,
- Netherlands: PT GUI Pro,
- Sweden: Profoto,
- Denmark: C1 Pro, Imacon scanner,
- Taiwan: QNAP,
- Korea: Samsung (an old screen about to go),
In terms of manufacturing, it is surprising to notice that few of the equipment I use is manufactured outside the country of origin (Zeiss being a notable exception). A few pieces of equipment are made in China and Thailand, but that is a small minority.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I had some garage sale Kodaks, but my first good camera was an Argus C3 bought from the used camera department at the drugstore that was walking distance from my house. It was made in Michigan.
Thanks, I was just about to ask where the Argus was made. :) I had a cheap 620 (616?) camera as a kid (Ansco?? I think...the front of it pulled out and it had a shutter lever with a small red knob on it. ) but the C3 was the first real camera. All Japanese after that.
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I just realized that all of the cameras I've ever used are from Planet Earth. Various bits were made in Japan, Germany, Canada, USA, France, and China. Doesn't matter much to me where they were made as long as they help me make the photos I want to.