Latest articles by David S Young
The world's most iconic tiny film camera was almost never built
Classic cameras The secret history of the Rollei 35: A masterpiece born in a basement
The lost history of Britain’s most innovative SLRs - and the camera that's rarer than a Stradivarius
Classic cameras High quality, high cost – the sorry tale of why Britain’s best cameras couldn't survive the 1960s
This 7-pound beast was once the press photographer's favorite camera, before it landed a surprising role in Star Wars
Classic cameras From Iwo Jima to Jedi: The surprising history of the Graflex Speed Graphic camera
How a trench warfare invention became Germany’s most iconic camera for a whole generation of professional photographers
Classic cameras Why the Rolleiflex medium format film camera is still considered one of the finest camera lines ever made
The rise and fall of Yashica cameras: Why the Yashica FX-3 remains the ultimate budget alternative to the Pentax K1000 SLR
Classic cameras The Zeiss connection: Why collectors still hunt for Yashica’s C/Y mount camera bodies
5 legendary monster wide-angle lenses – from water-filled glass to U$160,000 fisheyes
Five fascinating ultra-wide lenses that changed the way we see the world
The curious tale of how Fujifilm Instax cameras survived a brutal patent war to become an instant success selling over 100 million cameras!
Classic cameras Inside the 80-year rivalry that made the world's favorite instant camera brand possible
This American-made camera was known as The Brick – but still some two million photographers bought one!
Classic cameras The legendary American camera brand you probably forgot ever existed
The clever engineering trick that made Mamiya's cameras twice as good as its twin-lens reflex rivals
Classic cameras Mamiya failed at 35mm cameras, but then it built a legend with this twin-lens reflex range
This "utterly awful" analog camera recorded photos to floppy discs but somehow paved the way for modern digital photography
Classic cameras Sony called it the "Magnetic Video Camera" but it didn't actually record video!
The most expensive part of a 35mm film cassette is the part that photographers don't even think about
Classic cameras The simple 1934 invention that finally made photography convenient for everyone
A 3-year-old girl asked a simple question – and sparked a US$600 million camera revolution
Classic cameras Meet the original Steve Jobs: the man who invented the "impossible" decades before the iPhone
You could squeeze 72 shots from a 36-exposure roll or any number in between with this weird twin-format SLR, but one false move with the lever and your photos were ruined!
Classic cameras The "dual-format" trick that Konica abandoned because it was too confusing
This "Japanese Hasselblad" does things that the original Swedish camera simply can't
Classic cameras How a self-taught Japanese craftsman created the "Japanese Hasselblad" – which ended up being owned by Tamron
This is the secret reason that the US Navy ditched Nikon for this "American" camera
Classic cameras This 1960s US Navy SLR is built like a tank – and is still a masterpiece of engineering
Why Russia tried to clone the world's most famous camera (and got it hilariously wrong!)
Classic cameras Meet the Hasselbladski: Russia's strange, noisy attempt to steal Swedish perfection
Fujifilm’s new Instax Mini Evo Cinema takes inspiration from classic 1960s Fuji Single-8 cine cameras that were actually superior to Kodak Super 8
Classic camera The story behind the vintage tech that inspired Fujifilm's weird new Instax Mini Evo Cinema camera
The secret meaning behind the name Minolta (and how the camera brand evolved before disappearing forever)
Classic cameras This is why photographers fell in love with Minolta’s “fully-automatic” SR series of classic cameras
The hidden meaning behind the '3' in the legendary Leica M3 revealed
Classic cameras Classic Cameras #18 - Why many photographers still consider this 70-year-old Leica the "perfect" 35mm film camera
These mythical monster camera lenses are SO rare that they were only produced to special order
From 500-pound glass to $2 million price tags – inside the crazy world of extreme supertelephoto lenses
This Soviet 'sniper' camera looks more like a rifle than a photography tool and once sold for $63,000!
Classic cameras Classic Cameras #17 – Why the USSR built a 300mm telephoto camera on a wooden gun stock
The man who went home for Christmas with 100 packs of Polaroid film – but came home with no photos
Christmas story He lost three month's salary on cameras and film – but, in a heartwarming tale, it turned out to be the best Christmas ever
Why the world’s simplest SLR camera became its greatest (and is still in demand 50 years later)
Classic cameras Classic Cameras #16 – the indestructible camera that refused to die
