Depth of Focus

  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

  These are the Kodak Bantam f/4.5 and Kodak Flash Bantam, two miniature strut folding cameras, making eight 28x40mm negatives on 828 roll film, manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company between 1938 and 1953  While I wouldn't normally review two cameras simultaneously, these cameras should really be considered two examples of the same lineage, with improvements made over time.  The Kodak Bantam series, and importantly the history of the 828 film format begins in 1935 and was aimed to correct some of the deficiencies of the 135 film format we are familiar with today.  Kodak launched the 135 film cartridge alongside their German made Retina folding cameras in 1934. The concept of using 35mm double perforated motion picture film for still photography was not new. Leica and Contax cameras were already using it, but required photographers to reload metal cassettes from motion picture rolls in a darkroom, which limited the user base open to these cameras.  What Kodak's 135 format br