Kodak Ektra
When you handle as many cameras as we do, you develop a lot of foundational experience. That means, even when presented with an unfamiliar camera, we can usually pick it up and figure it out in short order. Having said that, when we finally got our hands on a Kodak Ektra, it took us a good 30-45 minutes of tinkering and reading instructions to really understand the function of this camera. This is an absurdly long time for us and speaks to the complexity and novelty of this camera's design.
The Kodak Ektra was Kodak's attempt, in the 1940s, to produce the world's best 35mm camera... And they certainly didn't fail for lack of trying.⠀ ⠀
The Ektra has a zoomable viewfinder that ranges from 50mm to 254mm! The built-in viewfinder could accommodate any focal length within that range, even though the 254mm lens was apparently never released. The viewfinder also compensated for parallax and had an insanely wide rangefinder base, almost the entire width of the camera. Notice the small windows on either end of the face of the camera, those are the rangefinder's eyes. This wide base makes for greater accuracy, particularly at farther distances.⠀ ⠀
That is only the tip of the Ektra iceberg. It was the first 35mm rangefinder with lever advance, located weirdly on the back of the camera and triggered with the left hand instead of the right. Speaking of back... the Ektra had interchangeable film backs. Yup, no worrying about getting through 36 exposures with this small beast, just swap out the backs! Then again, the actual process of swapping out the backs is certainly not the easiest or fastest.⠀ ⠀
We could go on and, undoubtedly we will discuss this camera at greater length in the succeeding Museum objects. It is a cool but strange camera. These days, they almost never work due to short-lived shutters but, if you get your hands on one, you will have quite the camera for the paperweight collection.⠀ ⠀
za/sd
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