I consider myself an ardent supporter of Ricoh/Pentax products and have always endeavored to review its cameras and lenses when many others have chosen not to. I also think that the Pentax brand has really found its niche as more of a boutique manufacturer, focusing on the classic SLR design -- a move that I think makes a ton of sense in today's waning market.
I write about a lot of things here at PetaPixel -- reviews, guides, technical articles, opinion pieces -- but one of my favorite topics to write about is the history of photography. As an avid user and collector of vintage cameras and lenses, I have passionately absorbed as much knowledge about their history as possible over many years. Like studying world history, there is much value in understanding where we came from and what got to us where we are now.
While moving to a new warehouse last month, Mint Camera discovered an unopened, worn box that contained a small number of Polaroid SLR 680 cameras in perfect condition.
Cosina is expanding to support Canon RF mount this year and will release a Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1 aspherical lens that, while manual focus, will communicate electronically with the camera.
Photographer and YouTuber Mathieu Stern recently found an old 1960s-era Edixa camera at a garage sale for about $5. It was in rough shape, but he believed it could once again be beautiful.
Tetsuro Goto, a former Nikon general manager and the designer of the Nikon Df, responded to questions about Nikon's supposed withdrawal from the DSLR business by saying that the maximum performance of SLRs has already been reached.
Nikon will withdraw its business from the DSLR market and focus its resources on mirrorless cameras, according to a report from Nikkei Asia.
It's a strange twist of fate that the company that rivaled Kodak in film manufacturing but currently makes very little of its money from the camera business should now be the largest camera manufacturer in the world.
Next month, in March 2022, Canon will celebrate the 35th anniversary of the launch of the company’s EOS System, which includes popular SLR, DSLR, and mirrorless cameras as well as a diverse range of accessories such as EF and RF lenses.
Hong Kong-based camera manufacturer NONS has announced the SL660, an interchangeable lens camera that accepts Canon EF lenses and shoots to Fujifilm Instax square instant film.
The past decade has seen an explosion of film users. Whether this is driven by a sense of nostalgia, or a desire to experience the past (for those too young to have shot film earlier in their life), for the simplicity, or perhaps because some celebrities have taken to shooting film, it doesn’t really matter. The reality is likely a combination of many factors.
As an art form and a technology, photography’s youth is only matched by its blisteringly rapid advancement. This creates something of a paradox for us as enthusiasts and professionals, where the history of the medium we so love can feel both short and overstuffed. Neither condition is conducive to any one camera gaining, let alone maintaining, a sense of permanence or constancy.
Cosina has launched the Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f/2.8 for Nikon's F-mount. Cosina says that the lens has been designed to bring the appearance of chromatic aberration to as close to zero as possible.
Cosina has announced the Voigtlander Color-Skopar 28mm f/2.8 SL II S Aspherical lens for Nikon F-mount. This all-metal manual lens is an homage to Nikon's film lenses from the 1960s.
Announced at a press conference in June 1989 in Bar Harbor, Maine, the Canon EOS-1 was a 35mm SLR meant to be a turning point in professional cameras.
After 16 years in production, Nikon has reportedly discontinued the much-beloved Nikon F6: the last flagship film SLR it ever made before transitioning to digital. The company also reportedly discontinued the Nikon D5 DSLR, the SB-300 flash, and a couple of older lenses.
A rare SLR camera from a century ago has been put up for sale. The Goerz Reflex-Jagd-Ango was a camera specifically designed for wildlife and expedition photography over a century ago, and one can now be yours for $3,500.
Japanese tinkerer Sanasol has just released a detailed, step-by-step "blueprint" video that shows you exactly how he was able to transform his classic Nikon FM film SLR into a digital camera without harming the film camera at all. If you have a few bucks to spend and a 3D printer handy, you can even follow along.
Great Britain's Royal Institution has put together a fascinating "tour through the history of photography." Using his own camera collection as a jumping off point, chemist Andrew Szydlo takes you through a sort of "crash course" on the history of photography in 41 minutes.
As the majority of camera manufacturers move away from the SLR type cameras and start producing mirrorless systems, one company continues to hold on to the past. Pentax has now in multiple statements confirmed that it will not be producing a mirrorless camera and will continue to develop SLR cameras.
Architecture student David Hensel loves both photography and LEGOs, and he recently brought these dual passions together to create a LEGO version of the classic Olympus OM-1 that's been gaining a lot of traction on the LEGO Ideas website. If all goes well, it could even become a real LEGO product.
The 'I'm Back' is ... well ... back. The digital converter that lets you add a sensor to old 35mm SLRs (and, later, medium format cameras) is back on Kickstarter with a new-and-improved model that expands compatibility to more old cameras, adds a manual shooting mode, and more.
A Hong Kong-based company called "NONS" has created a M42-mount ILC that can be used to shoot Fujifilm Instax Mini film. They're calling it the world's first M42 mount SLR instant camera, and it allows shooters to pair easy-to-find Fuji Instax film with much-beloved (and often very cheap) classic M42 lenses.
Photographer and Lego enthusiast Ethan Brossard has created an incredibly accurate Lego version of the classic Nikon F3 SLR that just downright awesome. Made up of 549 pieces, the Lego F3 is exceptionally detailed, and you can help turn it into an official Lego product by supporting the project on the Lego Ideas website.
Photographer Scott Graham recently put together a video that you'll either find incredibly boring or oddly satisfying. In preparation for the sale of a large number of his older analog and digital cameras, he created a video showcasing 37 different shutter sounds in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
Photographer and YouTuber Mathieu Stern recently got to visit one of the coolest places on earth for camera collectors: The Camera Rescue Project, one of the largest vintage camera collections in Europe.
Introduced in 1988, the Nikon F4 was the world’s first professional autofocus camera, and it made its way quickly into the hands of many working photographers. But despite the incredible leap in technology it represented, it was apparently quickly overtaken by the competition, which built on the solid foundation the F4 offered.
Lomography is making some major waves in the photo world today by unveiling the first brand new color negative emulsion to be released in half a decade. They're calling it LomoChrome Metropolis, and ironically enough, the "color" it emphasizes the most is... black.
Canon just officially discontinued the EOS-1V, the company's last remaining film camera. The move brings an official end to Canon's film camera business after an 80-year run.
The film renaissance continues. Ihagee has launched an ambitious new Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that's aiming to create a fully analog 35mm camera based on the classic Ihagee ELBAFLEX SLR, except this time with a Nikon F lens mount.
Say hello to Reflex, a new 35mm SLR camera that just launched on Kickstarter. It's the first newly designed manual SLR system camera in over 25 years.
If you like both photography and "things arranged neatly" photos, check out this photo of photographer John S. Payne's Nikon SLR collection. Actually, this is only about 1/3 of his entire collection.
Here's a neat little animation from Harman Technologt, the folks behind the Ilford brand of film, that breaks down exactly how a basic film photography SLR (single lens reflex) camera works.
Here's a video by the Camera Repair Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that shows an overhaul they did recently of a Pentax K1000 film SLR -- the "dirtiest Pentax [they've] seen in a very long time." The 3 to 4 hour examination and cleaning is condensed down to 2.5 minutes, and shows the beautiful mechanical inner workings of the K1000.
The Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube has amassed over 1 million subscribers by sharing videos of various objects getting crushed by a powerful hydraulic press. For its latest video, the channel decided to crush some vintage Canon and Nikon SLR camera gear.
In the 1970s and 1980s, photographers on a budget had help from an unlikely corner. While the West may have faced occasionally tense stand-offs against the Eastern Bloc, two of the Communist world’s biggest camera makers made millions of cameras that helped amateur shutterbugs get on the first rung of proper picture-taking.
Camera technology has come a long way in the last two decades; heck, it's come a long way in the last 5 years. But sometimes even decades old tech can keep up, like the Nikon F3H SLR and its burst mode that maxed out at a blazing fast 13fps in 1996!
Zacharie Turgeon is a photographer based in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. While he normally shoots with a digital camera, Turgeon decided at the last minute to take his Canon 35mm film SLR on a recent trip to Asia. It turned out to be the best decision he made.
After his adventure, Turgeon turned the film photos and digital footage he shot and turned them into the wonderful 2.5-minute-long travel video above. It's titled "Analog Asia," and has been selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Want to own a camera that once belonged to a photography great? Now's your chance. The estate of the Mary Ellen Mark is currently holding an eBay auction for a Nikon FM2 that was part of the late and great American photographer's collection. Mark passed away back in May at the age of 75.
It seems that Nikon has partnered with toy block maker Nanoblock to create a special set that lets you build a Nikon F SLR, Nikon's first SLR camera that was introduced back in April 1959.