Classic cameras: Leica, Hasselblad and the others

The classic cameras are those that changed how people took photographs: the Kodak Brownie, which made photography a popular movement in 1900, the Leica, which in 1925 made the small 35 mm camera possible, the Rolleiflex with its twin-lens viewfinder, the Hasselblad with interchangeable parts, the Nikon F, which became the press photographers’ reflex camera, the Canon AE-1 and Pentax K1000 for amateurs and the Polaroid SX-70 with its picture that develops in the light.

Facts

From Voigtländer to the Brownie

Voigtländer’s all-metal camera of 1841 was a cone-shaped brass camera for daguerreotypes, with a fast lens calculated by the mathematician Joseph Petzval. The exposure time for a portrait was cut from many minutes to under a minute.

Sixty years later Kodak launched the Brownie, a box camera that cost one dollar in 1900 and was aimed at children. Film was cheap, and photography became something everyone could do. The name was used for many models right up to the 1980s.

Leica and 35 mm film

Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz’s optical works in Wetzlar built a small camera before the First World War to test cine film, and it went into series production in 1925 as the Leica. With a small camera the photographer could move freely, and street photography and modern photojournalism grew up with it. The Leica III of 1933 had a coupled rangefinder and speeds from one second to a thousandth of a second.

The Leica M3 was shown in 1954, with the viewfinder and rangefinder in the same window and lenses that were attached with a bayonet mount. Henri Cartier-Bresson and many others used it, and the M series of Leica has kept the same basic form ever since, with the M6 of 1984 gaining a built-in light meter. The competitor Contax from Zeiss Ikon came in 1932.

Rolleiflex and Hasselblad

The Rolleiflex of 1929 is a twin-lens camera: the upper lens shows the image in a mirror, which the photographer looks down into, and the lower one takes the picture on medium-format roll film. It was smaller and lighter than the large cameras of the time and became a favourite of press and fashion photographers, among them Vivian Maier.

Victor Hasselblad built aerial cameras for the Swedish Air Force during the war and in 1948 showed the civilian 1600F, designed with Sixten Sason. The system of interchangeable parts meant that the photographer could change film in the middle of a roll. The 500C of 1957 had the shutter in the lenses and became the standard for professional photographers, and Hasselblad cameras went along to the Moon in 1969. Read more about Hasselblad.

The SLR takes over

In a single-lens reflex camera the photographer looks through the same lens that takes the picture, by way of a mirror that flips up when the shutter opens. The Nikon F of 1959 could be fitted with different viewfinders, motors and lenses and became the standard for press photographers. The Pentax Spotmatic of 1964 was among the first to meter the light through the lens.

In the 1970s cameras became smaller and cheaper. The Olympus OM-1 of 1972 made other manufacturers shrink their cameras, the Canon AE-1 of 1976 was the first to be controlled by a microprocessor, and the mechanical Pentax K1000 became the standard of photography schools. The Minolta 7000 of 1985 had autofocus with the motor in the body, and the whole industry followed.

Instant pictures and pocket cameras

Edwin Land got the idea of the instant picture when his daughter asked why she could not see the picture straight away. The Polaroid Model 95 of 1948 gave a finished picture after about a minute, and the folding SLR SX-70 of 1972 ejected a picture that developed in the light.

Other cameras made photography simpler. The Kodak Instamatic of 1963 was loaded with a cartridge, the Olympus Pen of 1959 took two pictures on each frame, the Olympus Trip 35 was powered by a solar cell around the lens and the Rollei 35 was one of the smallest cameras for full-frame film.

Aperture, shutter speed and the digital

All these cameras control the light in the same two ways: the aperture is the size of the opening and governs the depth of field, the shutter speed is how long the light is let in and governs motion blur. The diagram Aperture and shutter speed below lets you try different pairs.

The Nikon D1 of 1999 made digital photography possible for professional photographers, and the press switched quickly. But many of the mechanical cameras still work, and film is in use again. More cameras and other technology can be found in the technology category.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which camera has two lenses one above the other, where the upper one shows the image in a mirror?