Since about the 70s, Arri cameras have dominated the 35mm industry, with only Panavision and their Mitchell based cameras as a rival.Ĭzechoslovakia produced a number of their own cameras to high standards through companies like Slechta and Cinephon, which found success across the world before WWII. Arnold and Richter (Arri) became quite successful in the post-war era, but studios often still used French and American cameras for some years. Germany had Geyer, Ernemann and Askania, but as mentioned earlier, these companies primarily made Pathe or Debrie copies for professional use, and were rarely used on their own important productions. Italy had Prevost, Donnelly and Ventimiglia, but never produced many of their own cameras and mainly used American, French, British and Czech studio cameras. Here’s a selection, mostly disregarding smaller firms or those that only made small gauge cameras:įrance had Pathe and Debrie and Eclair, as well as Aaton.īritain had Williamson, Moy, Darling, Newman Sinclair and Vinten, though like many other countries their studios mainly used French Debries and American Bell & Howells or Mitchell’s, until Rank made a Mitchell NC copy using the British firm Newall, which became something of an industry standard there in the post-war era. So we have Panavision, Mitchell, Bell & Howell from America, ARRI from (West) Germany, Aaron from France, and the few from Japan. ![]() One interesting design is the Soyuz-US3N which is seemingly a partial copy of the Cinema Products XR35 (same movement etc) but is self blimped and has different body design ![]() most of the Soviet cameras were just their own products like Konvas, Kinor, PSK, etc. ![]() I have seen some OCT19 modified Mitchells too so they seemingly used a limited amount of them as well. There was some other Eastern Block cameras available as well like the Meopta ERK (very rare camera, I have only seen one on eBay couple of years ago and nothing since). the Soviet lens coatings are by my opinion worse than the Western ones of the similar era and design and the chromatic aberration is different looking but these are just "part of their look" and are appreciated by most users ? Their lenses are somewhat based on the similar era Western lenses (for example the Foton 37-140 zoom based on the similar range Angenieux one and the Lomo primes somewhat similar optical design than Zeiss standard speeds in most models. they are not "copies of the western cameras" in that sense. most of the designs are loosely based on the Western design on the first model but then on the subsequent refinements their own design choices start to kick in and the later models are pretty unique designs. I suppose the Soviets did make their own cameras and lenses, though. In the early days, the cameras were predominantly French, before the American-made Bell and Howell 2709 became a studio standard, to be replaced during the 20s by the Mitchell. Even an advanced industrial nation like Germany, with a large and influential film industry, made precious few of their own cameras in the years up to WWII, and most of those were clones of French Debrie Parvos. The motion picture industry has always been a fairly niche market. There was more engagement with professional cinematography optics, with firms like Canon, Kowa, Keihan and Ichizuka Kogaku. I think most Japanese companies involved in photography or cinematography in the post war years concentrated more on the mass consumer market, creating many stills, 8mm and Super 8 movie cameras, but not so many 16mm ones and hardly anything in larger gauges. I don’t know how many were made, all the Japanese films I’ve looked into used standard cinematography cameras like Bell & Howells, Mitchells, Arriflexes and Panavision cameras, but it’s not always easy to get firm information on the technical equipment used. Like those, it uses C mount lenses, so there is very little room behind the mount. It was made by the Doi Ltd company.Įrkan Umut, who sometimes posts here, has a blog with some pictures of both the Doiflex and some Japanese 35mm Mitchell clones:Īccording to “Motion Picture Photography: A History”, the Mitchell clones were first made in the 50s by the old, established firm of Seiki Seisakusho, and were very important to the Japanese cinema industry. Though it looks externally like an Arri 16S clone, the movement is more like something from a Bell and Howell Filmo with a reg pin added, and the reflex viewing is achieved by a small angled mirror on a vertically reciprocating shuttle - like a mixture of Beaulieu’s guillotine mirror and Eclair ACL’s ‘wiper’ mirror. I’d be curious to check how well the reflex system works. I’ve never had one in front of me, but it seems like an interesting camera. Mirror reflex finder, strictly straight moving register pin You have the Doiflex 16, a professional camera in my eyes.
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