The models

Written once, for every one of them.

A page for each model that comes through here often enough to be worth knowing: what it was for, what it is good at now, what tends to go wrong with it, and what actually fixes that. All of it is true of every example of the model, here or anywhere else. Written from the maker’s own figures where they exist, and left out where they do not.

Braun ET66Braun's ET66: a 1987 pocket calculator by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs, with color-coded domed keys.Braun · From 1987. Reissued as BNE001 from 2013 Braun Nizo 801An aluminium Super 8 camera with a shutter you can close by hand, designed inside Dieter Rams's department at Braun.Braun · Mid-1970s. Wright and super8wiki date it to 1975; super8.tv gives 1974 to 1976, before the 801 macro Canon 1014XL-SCanon called it the pinnacle of its 8mm cameras, and put a microprocessor in it six years before it stopped making them.Canon · From May 1979 Canon 310XLA compact Canon Super 8 camera built round an f/1.0 zoom lens, which Canon's museum calls the world's fastest lens speed at the time.Canon · From August 1975 Canon 514XLDeveloped alongside the 310XL and out two months after it: a stop slower, and far more camera for it.Canon · From October 1975 Canon 814XL-SThe lighter, cheaper sister of the 1014XL-S, launched in the same month, with a lens that Super8wiki rates the sharper of the two.Canon · From May 1979 Canon AE-1The camera that put a microprocessor in an SLR, and automatic exposure in everybody's hands.Canon · From April 1976 Canon AE-1 ProgramThe Canon AE-1 Program adds a program mode and an LED viewfinder to the AE-1, and lets you change the focusing screen.Canon · From April 1981 Canon Auto Zoom 518 SVThe practical one: 24 frames a second, a real manual aperture, and no obsolete battery to hunt for.Canon · From March 1971 Canon Auto Zoom 814Built when Kodak would not yet guarantee a lens as fast as f/1.4: Canon calls its lens the world's first 8x f/1.4 zoom.Canon · From March 1967 Canon FD 50mm f/1.8Canon's standard FD-mount lens, made in five versions from 1971 that got lighter and simpler each time.Canon · From March 1971 (New FD version from June 1979) Canon FTbAll mechanical, all manual, and it works with a flat battery. The connoisseur's cheap Canon.Canon · From March 1971. Revised as the FTb-N in July 1973 Casio A158WCasio's A158W: a 1989 digital watch on module 593, in a chrome-plated case 8.2 mm thin, on a steel bracelet.Casio · From 1989, still in production Contax G1An autofocus body with interchangeable Zeiss lenses and no reflex mirror. It looks like a rangefinder but has no optical rangefinder to focus with. Six of the seven G lenses work on a green-label body; the 35–70mm zoom works on no G1.Kyocera · From 1994. Superseded by the G2 in 1996; G-system production ended in 2005 Contax G2The G1 with the complaints answered: faster shutter, faster focus, four frames a second, and the only body the Zeiss zoom will work on.Kyocera · From 1996 until Kyocera left the camera business in 2005 Contax TThe original Contax T, sometimes listed as the T1, though its manual calls it simply the Contax T: a Porsche Design, titanium-clad pocket rangefinder with a Zeiss Sonnar and no autofocus at all.Kyocera · From 1984. Ken Rockwell gives the production run as 1984–87; we have not found a second source for the end date Contax T2A titanium autofocus pocket camera with a Zeiss Sonnar, aperture priority and a manual focus option, whose price multiplied in the late 2010s for reasons that had little to do with photography.Kyocera · From 1990 (Wikipedia gives 1991). Later followed by the T3. Kyocera announced in April 2005 that it would stop shipping Contax cameras in September 2005 Konica Hexar AFA heavy, largely metal compact with a 35mm f/2, full manual control, and a silent mode that Konica disabled at the factory on the Silver model of 1997.Konica · Black model from February 1992 in Japan according to Mike Eckman (Wikipedia, Cameraquest and Lomography give 1993); Hexar Silver from April 1997. Exact end of production not documented Leica M6Leica's 1984 rangefinder that put a light meter inside the classic M body, read off a white circle on the shutter.Leica (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar, later Leica GmbH, Solms) · 1984 to 1998; the M6 TTL followed from 1998 to 2002, and Leica reissued the M6 in 2022 Leica MiniluxA titanium compact with a 40mm Summarit, known to most people by the error code that appears on its display when it stops.Leica · 1995 to 2006, according to the Leica Wiki Minolta TC-1Ninety-nine millimetres wide, 185 grams, a 28mm G-Rokkor, and an aperture made of four round holes on a disc instead of an iris.Minolta · From 1996 into the early or mid 2000s; the exact end is not reliably documented Minolta X-700Minolta's program-mode SLR of 1981, and a camera whose serial number is worth reading before its cosmetic condition.Minolta · 1981–1999 Nikon 35TiThe one with the four needles on the top plate, which tell you the aperture, the distance, the frame and the compensation, and are not a light meter.Nikon · From 1993. End of production not reliably documented Nikon F3Nikon's professional 35mm SLR from 1980: aperture priority, an LCD in the finder and a titanium-foil shutter.Nikon (Nippon Kogaku K.K.) · March 1980 to 2001 (Nikon gives both 2000 and 2001 for the end) Nintendo 3DSThe 2011 Nintendo 3DS: glasses-free 3D on the top screen, a touch screen below, and the first Circle Pad.Nintendo · From February 26, 2011 (Japan) Nintendo Game Boy PocketNintendo's 1996 Game Boy Pocket: the Game Boy made smaller, on two AAA cells, with a clearer gray screen.Nintendo · From July 21, 1996 (Japan) Olympus mju IISold as the Stylus Epic in America, and the camera that made a sharp 35mm prime something you put in a coat pocket without thinking about it.Olympus · Announced February 1997, on sale in Japan from 26 March 1997 Olympus XAA real rangefinder that fits in a shirt pocket, built around a size target Yoshihisa Maitani set before anything else.Olympus · 1979–1985 Pentax MXA fully mechanical 35mm SLR from 1976. The battery runs only the five-LED meter, never the shutter.Pentax (Asahi Optical) · 1976 to the mid-1980s (sources give 1984 or 1985) Polaroid SX-70The Polaroid SX-70 is a folding SLR from 1972 that ejects a print, which then develops by itself in daylight.Polaroid · 1972–1977, with the SX-70 Sonar from about 1978 Ricoh GR1, GR1s and GR1vA 28mm lens in a magnesium body 26.5 millimetres deep, and a top-plate display that is the family's best-known fault.Ricoh · GR1 from October 1996; GR1s 1998; GR1v from September 2001, discontinued 2005. Ricoh ended all service in 2014 Rolleiflex 3.5FThe Rolleiflex 3.5F is a 6x6 twin-lens reflex from 1958 with a 75 mm f/3.5 Planar or Xenotar and a coupled meter.Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · From 1958 until between 1976 and 1981 (accounts differ) Seiko 6139 chronographA column wheel and a vertical clutch in one movement, sold at sports-watch prices, and it went to Skylab.Seiko · 1969–1979 Seiko 6309-7040Seiko's cushion-cased 150 metre diver of the late seventies and eighties, and the shape the modern Turtle copies.Seiko · About 1976 to 1988 Sony WM-F10The Sony WM-F10 puts an FM stereo tuner and Dolby NR in a metal-bodied Walkman that runs on one AA cell.Sony · From 1983 Yashica T4 and T5A plastic-bodied automatic compact with a Carl Zeiss Tessar 35mm f/3.5 on the front, made by Kyocera and sold under the Yashica name.Kyocera · T4 from about 1990; sources give 1990 and 1992 and we cannot settle it. T4 Super and T5 from 1995

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