Depth of Focus

  There are certain places in the world known for the manufacture of photographic equipment. Wetzlar, Germany. Rochester, New York. Perhaps even Ann Arbor, MI. But Minneapolis, Minnesota?  Yet, during the 1940s and 50s, Minneapolis was home to the Clarus Camera Manufacturing Company. A firm which only ever made one camera, the Clarus MS-35.  History The 1930s was an era for the development of precision miniature cameras. Kodak's introduction of the daylight loading 135 film cartridge in 1934 and the popularity of German made Leica and Contax cameras prompted multiple American companies to introduce their own offerings and hopefully capitalize on a lucrative emerging market. Previously, I talked about the Perfex Fifty-Five , another camera that emerged as a result of this.  The story of Clarus began in 1939, when International Photographic Industries, Inc. of Chicago announced the model MS-35. The camera had been designed by Paul Mann, who was a primary financier of the company, and

  This is the Model 21 Markfinder, a scale focus camera using 135 film manufactured by Argus Camera Incorporated from 1947 to 1952. This camera is notable for being the first camera to make use of projected framelines in the viewfinder to assist in framing the subject.  If you are living in the United States and familiar with vintage cameras, the name Argus should be familiar to you. Where I live in Michigan, about an hour from Ann Arbor where the cameras were made, you can barely walk five feet through an antique store or thrift shop without tripping over an Argus camera of some kind.  Despite being best known for making cameras, Argus was actually established for the manufacture of radios made out of Bakelite in 1931 by Charles Verschoor under the name International Radio Corporation. IRC had been moderately successful during the Great Depression, making inexpensive radios at prices most people could afford. However, Verschoor wanted a product that could be sold during the slow radio