
David S Young
David Young is a Canadian photographer and the author of “A Brief History of Photography”, available from better bookstores and online retailers worldwide.
Latest articles by David S Young

The world's best-known underwater explorer created a camera that went on to rule the waves
By David S Young published
Classic camera Collectors are now hunting for this notoriously flawed half-frame film camera

Why left-handed photographers fell in love with this otherwise awful 1980s bridge camera
By David S Young published
Classic camera Collectors are now hunting for this notoriously flawed half-frame film camera

Kodak sold 50 million of these cheap plastic cameras, so why did they suddenly vanish?
By David S Young published
Classic camera Before smartphones, the Kodak Instamatic was the ultimate point-and-shoot gadget that everyone owned

Nikon built this camera to replace a legend – but professionals refused to buy it, despite its rugged beauty
By David S Young published
Classic camera Photographers refused to buy Nikon’s most advanced camera for over a decade, sticking with its predecessor

Wide load! The history of panoramic cameras – from the iconic XPan to the old and new Widelux
By David S Young published
Classic camera Panoramic cameras have existed since the 1800s. Here's how we got from obscure German models to Jeff Bridges' favorite camera

More expensive than a Nikon F: The rise and fall of the "Bullseye" camera
By David S Young published
Classic cameras The secret history of the Zeiss Contaflex and the 35mm TLR that changed everything

The forgotten failure that forced Canon to reinvent the SLR camera and change photography forever
By David S Young published
Classic cameras There's a little-known link between a 1980s Canon 35mm SLR and the birth of the World Wide Web

The f/0.95 mystery: Why 'world record' super-fast camera lens speeds are often just about the bragging rights
By David S Young published
classic lenses The fascinating history of super speed lenses and why the world's 'fastest' lens was actually a German joke!

The world's most iconic tiny film camera was almost never built
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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!
By David S Young published
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!
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
Classic cameras Meet the original Steve Jobs: the man who invented the "impossible" decades before the iPhone

This "Japanese Hasselblad" does things that the original Swedish camera simply can't
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
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!)
By David S Young published
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
By David S Young published
Classic camera The story behind the vintage tech that inspired Fujifilm's weird new Instax Mini Evo Cinema camera
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