Legendary cameras of the 19th - 20th centuries

In this exposition you can get acquainted with the history of the most iconic cameras of the XIX-XX centuries from the funds of the Russian Museum of Photography: you can seea wooden Fochtländer camera, various box-type, rangefinder and SLR cameras.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian photography continueddeveloping, but only foreign photographic equipment was used most of the time: Ika (Dresden, Germany), Heinrich Ernemann (Dresden, Germany), K.P. Herz (Berlin, Germany), “Agfa” (Berlin, Germany), “Fochtländer” (Germany), “Kodak” (USA, Rochester).

In the XX century, the camera industry in all countries started developing more rapidlysince the success of science and technology has become especially impressive.
In 1931, the first domestic camera “Photocor-1” was produced. Then “Arfo”, “FC”, the klapp-camera “Tourist” were manufactured as well.
In 1932, the world’s first small-format rangefinder Leica II camera was released in Germany, and in January 1934, Russia began producing its Soviet copy — the FED camera.
In 1936, the world’s first single-lens 35mm SLR German Kine-Exakta camera appeared.
Literally every 5 years new technical solutions appeared, which led to the rise of more advanced cameras.

During the XX century, many different cameras were produced in the world, but most of the amateur photographers are familiar mainly with Zenits and Smena. The collection of Russian Museum of Photography consists of cameraswhich many people did not even suspect, or saw them only on pictures. These are the Lyubimov’s multiplier, Leningrad, Kiev-10 and Sokol-2.