PHOTOGRAPHY- 38

 PHOTOGRAPHY- 38

SOME WORLD-RENOWNED CAMERA BRANDS  

Quite often, nostalgia grips us firm when we ponder over past expeience , trying to re-live the past to relieve ourselves from the present . For anyone, old products or their names mean so much –be it car, bicycle, refrigerator , typewiter, radio, transistor, bicycle, scooter , fountain pen and so on. Camera is also one such, though the item ceases to hold its place of pride with the advent of digital systems and Android phones that are a part of daily chores in communication , photos /videos, or message transmission.

 

Yet , a Camera is a Camera with its all-too promising eye-The lens. All said and done, for too long German industrial standards have held the forte, through their robust construction and precision engineering.

Thus German brands among cameras were in high esteem though priced several folds higher than Japanese versions.

In the then trend of using 120 format for general photography, ROLLEI was a name of eternal chant among photoenthusists. The ROLLEI had 2 versions –ROLLEICORD and THE ROLLEIFLEX both venerated for their quality. All such brands survived through the optics of Carl Zeiss –a noted giant in optics. ROLEI sported Carl Zeiss  Planar lens. Ironically  another giant Zeiss launched ZEISS IKON –IKOFLEX with equally strong features .

Japanese firms brought out products at far low price bands in global competition , leading among them were several models of YASHICA like YASHICA FLEX, YASHICA MAT, YASHICA MAT-G 24 and they sported lenses named Yashimar /Yashinon . However, with more refined processing of film, slowly the use of 35 mm films eroded into the market of bulky outfits . Several Japanese firms came out with 35 mm models from the stables of Yashica, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon and so on.

To begin with most of them brought off ranger finder models.  120 or 35 mm, the supremacy of German engineering was well known and the 35 mm market had the imposing presence of LEICA models from Leitz ; they had their brand of lenses –ELMAR , ELMARIT, SUMMICRON, SUMMILUX. Even in the era of 35 mm SLR cameras, Leica held forte for quite sometime. Suddenly by 1970s and later 2 Japanese camera houses –PENTAX and NIKON  turned the market tide of 35 mm SLRs in their favour by some quality optics. Pentax carried TAKUMAR and SUPER TAKUMAR LENSES  while NIKON hosted NIKKOR lenses MINOLTA had ROKKOR lenses.

Despite all such Formidable competitors around one item that keeps going rock steady is the SWEDISH camera HASSELBLAD specializing in 120 format and hailed as the most precise equipment for advertisement Photography. Proudly, the Apollo mission to Moon has used HASSELBLAD for their ‘on the moon’ pictures . Such is the reliability of HASSELBLAD. In digital zone too HASSELBLAD stays with its head high. Most camera manufacturers have switched over to Digital format –a zone that is quick sand for me; I don’t dare any  venture there.

More to follow

K.Raman