logo

Chinon CE II Memotron

The Chinon CE II Memotron was the middle sibling in a trio of Memotron cameras that Chinon began producing in 1974.  The Chinon CE II Memotron came along two years after that initial CE Memotron, in 1976.  It added only a few new features to what was an innovative camera design. The battery compartment was redesigned, an eyepiece blind was installed for use during long exposures to help prevent the metering system from becoming skewed by stray light, and the ability for double exposures was added.  Other than that, the CE II Memotron remained very loyal to the design of the original Memotron. 

In general, the whole Memotron series was a bit of a last hurrah for the M42 lens mount.  The Memotron cameras allowed open aperture auto exposure.  Essentially, the camera could work in an aperture priority mode to automatically set the correct shutter speed for a situation.  Sounds pretty standard these days, but in the mid-70s this was quite novel.  There were cameras already that could auto expose with M42 lenses, but they either required manually stopping down the aperture (preventing open aperture composing and focusing), specific M42 lenses that were compatible (eliminating much of the M42 lens library) or required a wonky overriding of the stop down element (see the Yashica Electro AX).

Chinon produced a number of their cameras to be marketed under other companies' brand names.  So the CE II Memotron can also be found as the GAF L-ES/2, Foto-Quelle Revueflex 5000 EE and as the Porst Reflex M-CE.

All rights reserved ©2024, Blue Moon Camera and Machine llc