Olympic Candids - (1937) |
I've never seen one, much less all three. These ads all ran in the back pages of Popular Photography—the same issue, on different pages. At first glance they all look like the same camera, and I thought it was an interesting experiment in advertising. It wasn't until I began reading the copy that I realized each were at least slightly different. The two cameras on top both take 127, the Super below runs 35mm. I feel a little sorry for anyone who tries to use a light meter with these things, as the final step on the shutter speeds (for the two more expensive cameras) and the aperture (on the cheapo) are 1/2-stops, whereas all the earlier steps are in full stops. So much for reciprocal math. It turns out that these are Japanese bakelite-bodied cameras, which means they're probably hellishly expensive collector's items now. There's a nice write-up on them at Camerapedia. |