GOMZ Malyutka Camera

My GOMZ Malyutka camera

It wasn't until later in my camera-collecting career that I developed an interest in miniature and subminiature cameras. It was the more unusual or the odder looking camera items like the pen-shaped Stylophot,  or the round Petal camera, the Twin Lens style miniature cameras like the Gemflex camera, or the miniature cameras which resemble small rangefinder or SLR cameras like the Golden Ricoh 16, where I really enjoyed having them in my collection. They are very unique cameras and items that stand out because they are so different from the larger box, folding, or view cameras. A real advantage of having miniature and subminiature cameras in your collection is the amount of display space they save. You can display many more items and accessories in a much smaller area.

 The GOMZ Malyutka is a camera I purchased around 10 years ago, and I didn't start researching it until about a year ago, when I found out it was pretty rare. I didn't even have it in my display of miniature or subminiature cameras until that time.

 This is another camera I purchase in a group or "lot" of camera in a fairly unknown auction of camera. My real prize and the main item I was bidding on was an early Nikon F body, and tucked in the background was an early Nikon 5cm f2 tick mark lens, which, due to the angle of the lens and the low visibility of people looking, not many people bid on the "Lot", so luckily it was one that I won. There were also other items within the "lot" that I had minimal interest in, but the Tick Mark lens and early Nikon F body were the prize.

Back side of GOMZ Malyutka camera

 Once I received the items from the auction, I noticed this really nice brown bakelite camera with Russian Cyrillic writing on the back. As I've mentioned before, I have a love for colored cameras, so when I saw this Gomz Malutka, I thought it was a nice little camera. I put it away, not really giving the camera much thought until about a year ago when I was going through a box of photo items for a local camera show that was selling at. I pulled the Gomz Malutka from the box, and was ready to add it to the items for the sale. Then, as I was inspecting the camera again, I thought it might be a fun camera to write about sometime in the future. I set the camera aside.

 After the camera show, as I returned to my office, I noticed the Gomz Malutka on my desk and started making some basic inquiries about the camera. At this point, I began to see that the camera is indeed somewhat rare, so let's write about it for my blog.

History:

 The history of GOMZ (Gosudarstvennyi Optiko-Mekhanicheskii Zavod), the State Optical-Mechanical Plant, reflects Russia's tumultuous and innovative 20th-century history. Located in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the factory was the cradle of the Soviet optical industry, responsible for producing the nation's first mass-market cameras and pioneering designs that predated Western equivalents.

Cover of Sovetskoe Foto (Soviet Photo) Magazine

 The facility began life in 1914 as a French-Russian joint venture to produce optical sights for the military during World War I. Following the 1917 Revolution, the factory was nationalized and underwent several reorganizations before officially adopting the GOMZ acronym in 1932. While it continued to produce military optics, the Soviet leadership demanded a domestic photographic industry to reduce reliance on German imports, pushing GOMZ toward consumer cameras.

 The 1930s marked GOMZ's golden era of innovation. Its first major success was the Fotokor-1 (1930–1941), a 9x12cm folding plate camera. Based on German designs, the Fotokor-1 became the first mass-produced Soviet camera, with over one million units manufactured. It effectively democratized photography in the USSR, serving as the primary tool for documenting the Soviet state's industrialization.

Even more technically significant was the Sport (1937), a 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. Historians often debate whether the GOMZ Sport or the German Kine Exakta was the world's first proper 35mm SLR. Regardless of the title, the Sport was a marvel of engineering for its time, featuring a vertical metal shutter and a reflex viewfinder that allowed photographers to see exactly what the lens saw—a standard feature today, but revolutionary in the 1930s.

Logo of Gomz camera

 During World War II, the factory suffered heavily during the Siege of Leningrad. Production shifted entirely to military needs, such as sights for tanks and artillery. After the war, GOMZ pivoted back to consumer goods, focusing on affordable, simple cameras for the recovering population.

This post-war period gave rise to the legendary Lubitel series (starting in 1949). Based on the German Voigtländer Brilliant, the Lubitel was a twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera made of Bakelite and later plastic. It was cheap, durable, and capable of producing excellent medium-format images, introducing millions of amateurs to photography. Similarly, the Smena series provided a simple, viewfinder alternative that became a staple in Soviet households.

 In 1965, GOMZ underwent a final restructuring, becoming the Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Association (LOMO). Under this new name, the factory would later produce the LOMO LC-A, the camera that accidentally sparked the global "Lomography" art movement in the 1990s. However, the foundation of this success was laid during the GOMZ era, which transformed a military optics plant into a titan of Soviet creativity and engineering.

My Camera:

 My GOMZ Malyutka is small, measuring  2" wide, by 1.5" tall and 1.5" deep from the front of the lens to the rear of the camera, and it weighs only 2.3 ounces without film. The Gomz Malutka is based on the SIDA camera from Sida GmbH, Berlin, Germany, which was made in the mid-1930s and came in both metal and Bakelite. "Malyutka" (малютка) is a Russian word that means "baby," "little one," or "tiny thing". It is also very similar to a camera made by Gomz,  Liliput camera.

 The camera's controls are very straightforward. There is only the shutter release at the bottom of the camera, along with the shutter control on the right side next to the lens. The shutter control consists of two settings: "M" (moment) for normal shutter speed, generally around 1/50 sec, and "B" for time exposures. Sliding a bar out from the side of the camera makes these settings. Sliding the shutter release under the lens takes the photo. 

 To open the back of the camera to load film, there are clips on either side that you move to the down position to remove the back. The camera takes Boltax film, a special 35mm film that produces a 24 mm x 24 mm negative. You load the camera similarly to any roll film camera: put the empty spool on the take-up reel side and the fresh film on the opposite side. Bring the leader to the slot on the take-up spool and start winding. Put the back on the camera and slide up the clips to lock it in place. Wind the film and advance it to the first frame.

 There is a small viewfinder at the top of the camera to frame your photo, and a tripod socket at the bottom to steady the camera during long exposures. Also at the top is a small, round metal disk that rotates as the film moves within the camera. Since the camera doesn’t have a red window on the back of the film door, you need to watch the disk rotate a few times to make sure the film is moving inside the camera.

Results:

 Since I don't have any Boltax film, I wasn't able to take photos with the Malutka camera, but possibly in the future, I'll try and use some paper backing I have from a few rolls of 828 film and run some film through it using 35mm to see how the camera performs.

 

Conclusion:

 The Gomz Malyutka is an excellent small camera that I enjoy having in my collection. It's in fantastic condition and is another color camera that sits proudly amongst the other miniature and subminiature cameras on my shelf.

 Thank you for taking the time to learn about this small, odd Russian camera. 

 I'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch with me if you have questions, concerns, or comments.

 Here's a link to my other Camera Reviews.

 Cuny's Camera and Photo has many cameras I've reviewed for sale, along with other camera and photo oddities. If interested in any items, email me, and I'll offer a nice discount as a friend of the family.

 Until next week, please be safe.

 

Coronet Cameo

My Coronet Cameo camera

It wasn't until I had been collecting cameras that I developed an interest in miniature and subminiature cameras. One of my earliest recollections of liking small miniature cameras was when I became a sales representative for a well-known Swiss large-format camera company (Sinar) and traveled to Sacramento to visit a store that displayed many different miniature and subminiature cameras at the cash register.

 I fondly remember spending time looking at the display, thinking many of the cameras seemed so odd and unusual, which is something I'm always looking for in what I collect. When I asked the owner of the store if any of the cameras were for sale, and his reply was a swift and hardy "no", in my mind, it triggered a need to find out more about this whole new world of cameras I was aware of, but had no interest in collecting.

 While I don't have a large collection of miniature and subminiature cameras, the ones I do have have a special place in my collection because they are all very unique. I have the majority of the miniature and subminiature collection on my desk, which I'm at the majority of the time I'm in my office, or what I call my camera oasis. It's the one room in our house where I can do what I want, within reason. Another terrific part of the collection is that they don't take up much room, so I have many of them in a small area that reminds me of the display at the camera store I went to well over 30 years ago.

 I came across the Coronet Cameo camera on a trip to London about two to three years ago. For me, one of the main objectives of the trip was to visit Portobello Road to see some of the camera and photo stalls we had visited on a previous trip to London many years earlier. When my wife and I visited the outdoor market, I found that things had changed, and many of the vendors only showed up on weekends. This was a massive disappointment for me, especially since my wife and I were leaving on Saturday afternoon.

Coronet Cameo size comparison.

 The main person I was to meet was Juliano of Cameras London, who shows his cameras only on Saturday. Somehow, I convinced my wife that I would take the bus to Portobelo Road and back in time for us to go to the airport. 

 As I took the bus to Portobello Road that Saturday morning, I remember I needed to be mindful of the time and hurry. I arrived early as Juliano was still setting up. He had a fantastic display of cameras and some negatives. There were several cameras I wanted to purchase, one being an Ilford Advocate, which you can read about. He said he had a cleaner version and would ship it to me. 

I got together a small group of cameras, and just before I paid him, I saw the Coronet Cameo. It was in poor condition, but it was odd and unusual, so I threw it into the pile. We made a fair bundle price for the items, including the Advocate and Cameo camera. I paid him for the items, put the cameras in my backpack, and made my way back to the hotel. We had plenty of time to make it to the airport.

History:

 The Coronet Camera Company was a significant English camera manufacturer, founded in 1926 in Birmingham, England, by Frederick W. Pettifer. The company began at 48 Great Hampton Street, Aston, focusing on producing an inexpensive line of cameras for the mass market. Their early focus was on simple box and folding cameras.

Photo of old Coronet building depicted from Historic Camera website

 A key aspect of Coronet's operations was its utilization of local Birmingham businesses. They partnered with the British Optical Lens Co. for lenses and, notably, with Edwin Elliott, a local plastics manufacturer, who fabricated molded plastic cameras for them. This collaboration led to popular pre-war models, including the small and stylish Coronet Midget and the Coronet Vogue, which were often made from colored Bakelite. By 1933, the company had reportedly sold a remarkable 510,000 cameras.

 The company became Coronet Ltd. in 1946. After World War II, the company specialized in low-cost, molded-plastic cameras. Due to French import restrictions, Coronet formed a partnership with the French company Tiranty of Paris. This collaboration led to several Coronet models, such as the Rapide, being manufactured in France, sometimes using Boyer lenses, to bypass trade barriers. Coronet also produced accessories and its own brands of film, including Corochrome.

 The company continued to manufacture cameras from its Birmingham headquarters (later located at 308-310 Summer Lane) until it finally ceased operations in 1967. Over its four-decade history, Coronet played a vital role in making photography accessible to the public by providing thousands of simple, affordable cameras, many of which remain popular collector's items today.

My Camera:

 This portion of the blog will be sparse, as there's not much to this camera. The Coronet Cameo camera is small and will almost fit into a 35mm film container. It's 2" wide by 1.5" deep and 2" tall with the front viewfinder extended and only 1.25" tall when it's retracted. The camera only weighs 1.6 ounces. The Cameo has a fixed 25mm F/11 Meniscus lens and a single shutter speed range of 1/25-1/50, with the shutter release on the right side of the camera body.

The camera is made from plastic and was manufactured between 1948 and 1952.  Coronet attempted to revive the success of the Pre-War Midget camera, which was highly successful for the company at the time.

 The Coronet Cameo takes a roll of 16mm film and produces six 12mm x 18mm negative-sized images per roll. The camera loads and winds like any other roll film camera, with the unexposed film loaded on the left and the leader threaded into the take-up spool on the right via the film winding lever.

The back of the camera is held in place by two clips on the right side of the camera. To open the back, lift it from the two clips; it will open, exposing the film chamber. Unfortunately, my camera, like many Coronet Cameo models, is warped, and the back doesn't fit properly to the body.

 A sliding front viewfinder can be pulled up, and when the rear viewfinder is lifted on the back of the camera, it exposes the red window displaying the frame number of the image you'll be taking on the roll of film.

My Results:

 Unfortunately, there is no longer film for this camera, and with the warped camera back, I wasn't able to take photos with it.

 

Conclusion:

 As I was taking photos of the Coronet Cameo, I had an empty 35mm film tube and tried to see if the camera would fit inside it, but it's just a tad too big.

 The Coronet Cameo camera is sitting right next to my Whittaker Micro 16 Pixie camera, which I considered writing about for this blog post. Still, I'll leave that camera for another day. I do enjoy all the miniature and subminiature cameras in my collection; it just took me a few years of collecting them to appreciate them for what they are.

 Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read about this small plastic camera from about 75 years ago. I'm sure many people owned and enjoyed them when they were made.

 If you're interested in reading about other cameras I've reviewed, here's a link to my other Camera Reviews.

 I also have a store on eBay, Cuny's Camera and Photos, where I sell items I've reviewed, as well as many other camera oddities.

 Until next week, please be safe.

Merlin Camera

My Merlin camera.

This week's posting is about a relatively uncommon camera with an odd and unusual look made by a tiny company in the UK. The camera is the Merlin, produced by United Optical Instruments in Southend-on-the-Sea, England. 

 I had seen the Merlin camera in books and online when looking at subminiature cameras. Still, it wasn't until my wife. I was on a trip to London a couple of years ago when I came across this odd bird at the Camera’s London stall on Portobello Road on a day that my wife and I were scheduled to go home. 

 Our flight wasn't until later in the afternoon, and I wanted to look for cameras before leaving, so I went there early in the morning to make it back in time to go to the airport. That's where I spotted the Merlin camera and a few other cameras I brought back to the States with me.

 What caught my eye about the Merlin camera is the very odd shape of the camera. It has a wide part of the body, then narrows down, but the lens area flares out again, and the winding knob is on the bottom of the camera. You need to display the camera on the side unless you rest the camera on something due to the winding knob on the bottom of the camera. It just doesn't sit evenly on a flat surface.

The Company:

United Optical Instruments is only known to have made two different cameras, and neither was very popular. One of the cameras they manufactured was the Jupiter camera, a simple plastic camera with an Art Deco faceplate that took 127-size film. The only controls on the camera were two shutter speeds, the winding mechanism, and the shutter release. The other camera they manufactured was the subminiature Merlin camera. 

ERAC Camera

 I can find little information about United Optical Instruments, which is located in a resort town on the Thames Estuary in Essex, southeast England, about 68 kilometers from London. However, I did find that the company was associated with the Erac Selling Company.

 The Erac Selling Co. manufactured and patented two slightly different, oddly shaped cameras that resembled a pistol made from thermoplastic material. One of the items was the Erac Automatic Pistol Camera, and the other was the Erac Mercury 1. These pistol-shaped cameras housed a Merlin camera without the viewfinder inside the pistol's body. When you pulled the pistol trigger, the camera took the photo. 

 According to the information I found online, the Erac is described and illustrated in a patent issued to Harry Steward of Southend-on-Sea in 1931. The early version uses a different type of film advance, and the Merlin doesn't seem to be in this version.

 Harry Steward and Harry Covill were issued an improved patent in 1937. The second camera's patent described it as a pistol-shaped device. The patent drawings show it to resemble a Merlin camera inside, but there is no mention of Erac.

 Since the Merlin camera is inside the Erac Pistol camera, they patented a camera without the Merlin inside. Still, they found it too difficult to make it work. A few years later, they decided to put the Merlin camera inside the camera without the viewfinder.

The Camera:

As you can see in the photos, the camera is very small. It's only  2" wide, 2" deep, and 2" tall with finder up and 1.5" when it's down, and it only weighs 3.9 oz. The camera is made from cast metal and painted with a crackle finish, as the exterior has a rough surface. I can see areas where it's either chipped off or some flaked off. My Merlin camera is black, but they also have blue, green, and red cameras.

 The Merlin took a special film of only 20mm rolls with a negative size of 18x18mm. It came on paperback rolls similar to the small "hit" style cameras, and to load the camera, the top of the camera, which is attached to the back, slides off, exposing the film chamber. Put in the roll of film, bring it over to the take-up spool, slide the top back on, and advance the roll to the first frame. The winding knob is on the bottom of the camera, as I mentioned earlier.

 Another slight issue is that the top of the body doesn't lock, so if the camera falls, the top can slide off, exposing the film. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't have any original fill spools, only the blank areas where the film goes.

The bottom of the Merlin camera.

 There is only one shutter speed, and the shutter release is on the bottom of the camera along with the film advance knob. The only item on the top of the camera is the fold-down viewfinder. The lens has no focus as it's a meniscus-style lens.

Conclusion:

Since I didn't have the film for this camera, I couldn't take it out for a walk through the neighborhood to take photos and see how it did. That's OK. I can use other cameras to do that.

 I really like having this small camera in my collection, and now I want to find a Jupiter or Erac camera to add to it.

 Thank you for taking a few minutes from your day to read about this wonderful camera made almost 100 years ago by a very small company in England. It has a nice place in my collection and hopefully inspires you to find one for it, too.

 I'd love to hear from you if you have questions, comments, or concerns about this or any of the cameras I've written about.

 Until next week, please be safe.

Expo Watch Camera

This week's camera blog is about another unusual camera given to me many years ago by one of my sisters' in-laws who passed away. The family members knew I enjoyed cameras, so they gifted the camera to me and asked me to take care of it for the man who passed. 

My Expo Watch Camera

 When I first received the Expo Watch camera, I was utterly surprised and deeply touched by the generosity. Opening the small box to reveal the fantastic camera in good working condition was a moment I'll never forget. It was a revelation that the person who passed knew about my love for cameras. It could have been my wonderful sister who had shared my passion with the family.

 Needless to say, it's in a prominent place in my collection and something I look at almost daily and think about the generosity of the person who gifted it to me.

 To add to the story of this blog and the Expo Watch camera, about three to four years ago, I purchased a "lot" of camera items. Among the other items I bought were accessories from what I thought were for the Expo Watch camera. However, after researching the cameras, I found that they are actually for the slightly later British version made by Houghton, the Ticka camera. They fit and work on both the Expo and Ticka cameras.

The Company:

Patent for Expo Camera

The camera was designed and invented by a Swedish designer, Magnus Niéll, who lived in Sweden and New York. The patent for the Expo Watch camera was approved on September 6, 1904. This camera was a significant innovation in the history of photography, as it was one of the first to feature a daylight-loadable film cassette with 25, 16mm x 22mm, or 5/8" x 7/8" exposures in each cassette.

 The Expo Camera Company, located at 256 West 23rd Street, New York, manufactured the Expo Watch camera. It also produced the Expo Police Camera and developed and enlarged accessories for both cameras. The company offered film processing and printing to its customers. If interested, here's a copy of the full Expo Camera Pricelist and Manual.

In an ad I found published in 1917, the purchase price for the Expo Watch Camera was $2.50. According to the price list above, the processing fee was 10 cents to develop per roll of film. Contact prints (5/8"x7/8") were .10 cents per dozen, .07 cents per 2x3 enlargement, and .10 cents per 3x4 enlargement. I also enjoyed their statement that "Cash should accompany all orders for development, printing, and enlarging."

Ad for Expo Watch Camera

 The Expo Watch camera started in 1905, was taken over in the late 1920s by the dealer G Gennart, who produced several different names on the camera. In 1935, there were red, blue, and black enamel cameras, which were extremely rare. 

 In 1905, or shortly after, Magnus Niéll offered the camera's design to the British camera manufacturer Houghton, who produced the same camera under the Ticka name. The Ticka camera was available in the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1914. Some of the later Ticka models had a replica watch face on the front, with the hand indicating the angle of view the photographer would have when taking a photo.

Magnus Niéll designed other cameras for Houghton, such as the Ensign Midget, Ensignette, and the unusual design folding plate Lopa camera made by Kindermann. 

My Camera:

My Expo Watch camera measures 2 3/8" in diameter across the body of the camera, and if you measure from the front of the lens, including the fob ring, to the rear of the camera is 3" long and 1" deep, including the winding knob and the camera weighs 2.7oz. The camera is made from Nickel and has a highly polished chrome top and bottom.

The camera was designed like a pocket watch so it would be inconspicuous for the people the photographer wanted to photograph. This design feature allowed the user of the Expo Watch camera to easily keep it in one of his vest pockets, making it ideal for candid photography. The photographer could remove the camera from his pocket, take the cap off the lens, point it at his subject, and take a photo.

Beneath the fob ring is a lens cap resembling a pocket camera's winding stem. Under the lens cap is a fixed focus, 25mm lens. The camera has two settings for shutter speeds. There is "I" for an instant, approximately 1/125 speed, and the other setting is "T" for a time exposure. The shutter settings are done on the side of the camera with a lever you pull down. The shutter release butting is a small pin on the underside of the camera set at the one o'clock position. Once the camera's shutter is cocked, you press that pin in, and the shutter releases, making the photo.

The shutter release button on Expo Watch Camera

The shutter is not self-capping, meaning that when you cock the shutter, you're exposing the film to light, so it was recommended to keep the lens cap on until you're ready to make the exposure. 

Shutter cocking Mechanist and settings for Shutter speed.

 The lens cap served as the shutter time if you were doing time exposures. You set it to "T," click the shutter, take the lens cap off for exposure, put the lens cap on to end exposure, and the cock the shutter again for the following exposure. I can almost 100% guarantee that 99.9% of these images are blurry due to the person's hand holding the camera for any period of time, along with the movement of taking off and putting on the lens cap, and the negative being so small.

On the underside of the camera, or the opposite side of the removable plate with the beautifully etched "EXPO," is the winding lever you turn to advance the film. Just to the left of the winding knob is a small window that tells the photographer what frame number they're on. Above the winding knob is another logo for the camera company, which includes EXPO in the center of an oval. Around the oval is Pat throughout the world. On top and under is The Expo Camera New York USA

On the bottom of the camera is a lever you can turn to help pop off the etched plate, which comes off to load the film. I'm too afraid to turn this lever too hard, as I don't want the lever to snap off, so to remove the etched plate, I use my fingernails and pull the plate off to expose where the film goes. Once the plate is removed, the film cassette fits into the bottom portion of the camera.

The Expo Camera did have two different viewfinders available that would fit around the collar of the lens, under the winding stem. A simple model A ground glass viewfinder sold for .50 cents, and a model B brilliant finder sold for .75 cents.

 I also have an item made for the Ticka Camera in the group. There were a few accessories, such as the time exposure lens cap. This item fits over the lens and is held into place by a tension screw. Once in place, you can pull the lever up/down depending on how it is mounted to open the lens, exposing the film to light. Using the time exposure cap is considerably easier than taking the lens cap on and off for time exposures. Another item I have is a separate finder lens which is a larger glass item with a convex lens and attaches onto the camera like the other viewfinders. It has the exact attaching mechanism that fits around the lens collar. From what I'm seeing online, both the time exposure lens cap and the larger window finder were made for the TICKA camera.

Conclusion:

The Expo Watch Camera is a fun and exciting camera to have in my collection. I cherish the way I received it. The more I researched the camera and its different variations, the more I'd like to expand my collection to include the Ticka model with the watch face on it or even some of the colored models I'm always drawn to.

 

Reference:

Pacific Rim:  https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/01266/01266.pdf

Historic Cameras:  http://www.historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=919&

Submini.com:  http://www.submin.com/large/collection/expo/introduction.htm

Vintage photo:  http://www.vintagephoto.tv/expowatch.shtml