Ugly cameras
Following the Letter of the Week (18-25 Dec), here is my list of most (expensive) unbeautiful cameras that I have handled or owned.
•Topcon RE Super, 1963 (the first 35mm SLR camera with TTL metering). Preferred choice of the US Navy in mid 1960s-1970s. Presumably you could fire the camera at the enemy once you ran out of torpedoes. Somewhat square in design, enhanced by beautiful and huge lenses.
•Contaflex. The Zeiss design team were at the schnapps again.
•Leica R8/R9. The design team obviously never saw the R4 to R7 cameras before they started with a blank CAD/CAM screen and forgot that they had the 2x magnification set by mistake.
•Minolta 110 Zoom SLR Mk1. Bigger than a 35mm compact and annoyingly flat, so fits in no pocket known to man or beast.
•Any Miranda SLR from the 1960s.
•Praktica L 3. Not for its looks you purchased this camera. Or the Domiplan lens.
•Dixons CE SLR, 1970s.
•Kodak DCS 520/560 DSLR. In addition, here’s a second list of cameras that were meant to be beautiful in theory but awful in reality.
•Sony/Hasselblad Stellar digital compact with wooden grip. Marketing department had one over the eight.
•Olympus O-Product. Has looks of the 1920s with added plastic, and more plastic.
•Any gold camera (except possibly the lovely Nikon FA). Black marks for Minox (awful way of destroying a subminiature), Minolta (Gold 16), Leitz (really awful from Gold R3 onwards), Hasselblad, and Canon (APS IXUS, 1997 anniversary).
•Minox 35 GT ‘Goldknopf’ (settle down at the back, it’s the golden shutter button).
•Tessina. Tiny but overcomplicated. Paul O’Sullivan
I’d managed to block the Hasselblad Stellar and Lunar monstrosities from my memory, Paul! Not just ugly but among the worst ideas in the history of photography, and a real low point for a great name like Hasselblad.