If all your photography practice has been in the digital era, you may not know that Fujifilm had a very productive ‘previous life’ as the maker of film cameras. Of course, the company started out making film – for both photography and cinematography – but in 1948, it introduced its first camera, a 6x6cm ‘folder’ called the Fujica Six. The Fujica brand was derived from Fuji Camera and remained in use until the mid-1980s.
The company introduced its first 35mm camera in 1957, a rangefinder design called the Fujica 35M. Subsequently, there was a steady stream of developments introduced in successive models, culminating in 1962 with the Fujica 35mm Auto-M, which was the world’s first 35mm camera with programmed exposure control. During the 1970s and ’80s, Fuji was very much part of the mainstream in terms of its amateur cameras (well, it actually helped create the mainstream), adopting all the developments in 35mm camera design – built-in fl ash, motorised film transport, autofocus, auto film speed setting, etc – and introducing a few of its own such as drop-in loading with automatic film threading. It also followed all the format twists and turns – 110, Disc, APS, and instant print (still going with today’s Instax system) – and it was at the forefront of the charge into digital imaging. Shown at the 1988 Photokina, the Fujix DS-1P was world’s first
