most famous camera model?

What is the most famous camera model ever made?

 

Not the most famous "brand" or format, but model. (example: the Nikkormat EL

or the Nikon F5) Not necessarily the best seller, but maybe the one model

most recognized by any generation, even though most have never held one in

their hands. I'm guessing the Leica M3, am I wrong?

Rollei in a way: when you see a tlr, Rollei is the first word that comes to people's mind.

Leica M3? Are you nuts? For all practical purposes they don't exist. That is, reliable reports of M3 sightings are very rare, as are reliable reports of sightings of ANY Leica. I see Leicas on tables at camera shows, not in use. Not that many were made ...

The "Kodak" (original), followed by the "Leica" (original), the "Brownie" (original), Kodak "Hawkeye" (1950s), "Speed Graphic" (generic).

Yeah, Rolleiflex is pretty famous and indeed people of all ages "recognize" any <abbr title="twin-lens reflex camera">TLR</abbr> as a "Rolleiflex" when I shoot a classic <abbr title="twin-lens reflex camera">TLR</abbr> camera. On the other hand, my grandmother (RIP) "recognized" any 35mm camera as a Leica, even a Nikon F801 (N8008) <abbr title="single-lens reflex camera">SLR</abbr>. But the Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex is definitively one of the iconic camera <i>models</i> that almost everyone will identify. "Leica" and "Hasselblad" have strong brand recognition as <i>the</i> 35mm or medium format camera maker, but I think that no-one (at least no non-photographer) could name a single camera model from one of these manufacturers.

The most famous has to be the Brownie. It almost became a generic term for any box camera.

 

Then there was the Instamatics, for better or worse.

 

In my experience, the Nikon F broke the big ground for public recognition as a popular camera.

 

I'm not speaking of the knowledgeable, but of the public in general.

Speed Graphic; Polaroid Swinger.

<P>"Famous" is a moving target. The most famous model in my youth was the Box Brownie. Everybody recognised it and knew it by name. Kids today would barely understand it's a camera and would probably name some brand of phone if you asked them for the top camera. That's progress.</P><P>BTW, stuff like Nikons and Leicas are just not known to the general public, so couldn't be described as famous.</P>

Polaroid SX-70!

kodak instamatic.

Interesting post, Neil. I guess we have to look carefully at that word "famous" you've used, and decide - does it mean just plain well-known or are there other connotations of excellence?

 

My dictionary, for example, has it defined as "much talked of and praised". So, even though the best-known camera of all time must clearly be the humble Box Brownie, which everybody's grandparents had way back when, perhaps when it comes to "praised" we should think more in terms of the Leica, Contax, Rolleiflex or Nikon F.

If talking the period covered by this forum then definitely the Brownie range. Next would Leica or Rollei but, as Brian so rightly said, 'fame' is a moving target.

I'll have to agree with David Lee - "Instamatic" it is.

 

Hasselblad fails due to the common "is that a Hasselblad?" question when you're shooting anything bigger than 35mm. MF or LF doesn't matter, to many people "big camera = Hasselblad".

 

I have no idea how to spot the difference between a Leica M3 and just about any other Leica, and I'm more into camera gear than most people!

Argus C3 Matchmatic

 

Kodak Instamatic

 

Polaroid Swinger

Nikon F was the most recognized camera of the second half of the 20th century -- to the general public, moreso than any Leica. Even Paul Simon talked about "Nikon camera" in the song "Kodachrome." If there was a new event people saw photographers armed with Nikon Fs.

 

I suppose it could ne argued that "Instamatic" was a more recognized name, but 35mm SLRs ruled serious photography for 40 years and Nikon was unquestionably the most recognized brand.

This is a very unfair question which can only receive unfair answers...

 

If you are going to mention Leica, then you would be unfair to Rolleiflex, Zeiss Ikon, Voigtlander??

 

If you are going to mention Nikon, then you would be unfair to Canon, Minolta, Pentax Yashica etc?

 

Each camera company has brought about inovations over their developing years, everyone has had their "first".

 

Hence there is no answer to such a question... imo

Like several others have mentioned, in the TLR world, Rolleiflex is the most famous - because they were the ones who developed the rollfilm TLR (not plate or sheet film TLRs - those date back to the 1860s) as we know it!

 

Like Bueh, whenever I shoot with my TLRs, Rolleiflex or not, someone older inevitably comes up to me and asks, "Is that a Rolleiflex?" I've even had that question asked by an elderly gentleman in Taiwan, when I was traveling there! He never explained why he knew about the Rolleiflex, but nevertheless, he was fascinated to see a 'young man' using such an 'ancient' camera.

 

Younger people closer to my age (college) don't recognize the camera as much - photography students do, of course, but others have approached me with, "Is that a movie camera?" or "Dude...that's old." or the more general, "What is that?" So...I would say the Rolleiflex isn't recognized to all generations (then again, what camera is?) - but it is the most famous in its own field.<div></div>

I too would say the Nikon F.

Before reading other posts, my the top 3 I thought of were: Kodak Brownie, Nikon F, and Leica M3 (though you might have influenced my by your post).

In Toronto there are 2 print advertising campaigns that inexplicably use classic cameras. One has an obviously modern model in a modern setting being snapped by photographers with Graflexes and those big flash attachments.

Another is for a financial institution...it shows a yuppie wingnut with a goofy grin holding a postwar (Ikonta 35?) and aiming it as if he intends to use it.

 

I think those Speed/Crown Graflex press cameras are fairly famous as icons.

 

PS: The other day a pretty female student saw my Yashicamat and said, "That's a wicked camera". I had to agree with her.

I have been going through the older National Geographics (pre 1960), and the most seen camera was a Leica screw mount IIIa and later. After that the Rolleis and Exacta.

Rarely do I go somewhere with one of my older Canon SLRs that I don't get asked asked if they're an AE-1. I'd venture to guess that for a lot of people, the widely marketed AE-1(over 5 million sold) was the steriotypical "nice camera"(meaning SLR) for people who were around in the '70s and '80s.

 

On the same note, I would speculate that the Digital Rebel has or is gaining much of the same status today.

Most of the answers above are dependent on the age of the person answering. Growing up I never heard of Rolliflex or Leica.

 

What I could identify as a camera though was from what I saw in the movies and while watching TV. Two cameras can be elevated to iconic status due to their presence in the media: any large format camera where the photographer has to go under a dark cloth to focus or use flash powder for a studio shot, and a Crown/Speed Graphic used by press photographers.

 

Most old people would be familiar with those two since they saw them when the movies first featured them and the rest of us have seen them during reruns on TV.

 

Any box camera or later Brownie style, although ubiquitous for a time, would have to take a back seat to those two since they were replaced by the latest cheap camera of the moment (e.g. the Instamatic in my youth).

Uhm, were not taking about brand recognition, or most influential, or best designed, or most used. Here in Europe nobody knows what a "Brownie" is, and Speed Graphics are only identified by vintage camera buffs. Thanks to the prominent logo most people will know one when they see a Nikon SLR, but I doubt that 1 in 100 can correctly identify it as an "F", or "F50", or "F301" model -- it's simply an old mechanical SLR just like the ones from Canon, Minolta, Porst or Revue (both rebranded cheap Japanese cameras).

 

But even when shooting student protests some (older) teenagers recognize the TLR design and guess that the camera is a Rolleiflex. It's really unsettling.

Well ,I'm going to leave the model aside, because that changes with time-----imo you've reached fame when the brand name becomes interchangeable with the adjective,noun and verb.

 

ie. put it in the fridgidaire---stitch it up on a singer--- make a zerox---take a polaroid--- a kodak moment,etc,etc.---you can "google" it--lol.