Film Cameras: A brief history, and stellar images created with it

A selection from the camera museum Aditya Arya dreamt up while building a unique collection of analogue cameras in his waking hours

Dec 19, 2020, 06:35 IST6 min
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TICKA WAISTCOAT POCKET CAMERA | 1904-1914 Envision someone standing on a sidewalk, appearing to check the time, while actually taking pictures! Designed to resemble a pocket watch by Magnus...
Image by ANN RONAN PICTURES/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES FORBES
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No. 3A AUTOGRAPHIC KODAK Model C  | 1914-1934 Between 1912 and 1917, a young backyard inventor by the name of Henry J Gaisman was granted several patents for photographic cameras. These imp...
Image by FROM LEFT: SSPL/GETTY IMAGES COURTESY KODAK
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STEREO KODAK Model 1  | 1917-1925  This folding camera created stereographs (3D pictures) that were a rage. It had two identical lenses, separated by a distance similar to the distance betw...
Image by KEYSTONE VIEW COMPANY/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES
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K-20 FAIRCHILD  | 1941-1945  The photograph of the cataclysmic mushroom cloud from the nuclear bomb that the US dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was captured by ...
Image by U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
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VAGEESWARI VIJAY  | 1945-1980  It was known as one of the best field and studio cameras the world over, and was manufactured in Alappuzha, Kerala, by K Karunakaran (KK). In 1942, a studio i...
Image by THREE LIONS/GETTY IMAGES
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THE BROWNIE TARGET Six-20   | 1946-1952  It is difficult to overstate the historic importance of the first small, hand-held, simple-to-use, inexpensive box camera. Brownie touted its simpli...
Image by BERT HARDY/PICTURE POST/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
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GRAFLEX Speed Graphic  | 1948-1958  &ldquoGet a Speed Graphic&hellip.with a camera like that, the cops will assume that you belong on the scene and will let you get behind police lines,&rdq...
Image by WEEGEE/INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES
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FED 3 Type A | 1961-1963The compact German rangefinder camera Leica had made its way to the Soviet Union by 1927 and had begun to change the habits of Soviet photographers before its import...
Image by LONDON EXPRESS/GETTY IMAGES
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MINOX B | 1958-1972Manufactured by Minox in Germany, this 9.5 mm film camera was the first subminiature camera with a built-in light meter that did not require batteries. For many years it ...
Image by ULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES

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