Mini Me

My Ricoh "35" camera and Hit Elite mini spy camera. The Ricoh "35" is a rangefinder camera with fixed lens made in Japan by Ricoh from 1955. The Hit Elite mini spy camera is a favorite of my collection. After WWII the Japanese had a period of low spending capacity. So they enjoyed using cameras which didn't use much film material, making 14×14mm exposures on narrow paper-backed 17.5mm film. This kept film costs affordable. The main design used for most of these cameras was that of a miniature version of a simple contemporary 35mm viewfinder camera, with leatherette covered body, chrome plated parts, a film advance control window in the back and a characteristic top with a simple viewfinder and film advance knob. Most of these cameras had a non-focusable lens with fixed small aperture, an everset shutter with bulb and instant mode. The original idea to make such 17.5mm viewfinder cameras was introduced in 1937 with the Midget, certainly invented by Nakamura Jirō, followed in 1939 by the Mycro, but the vast majority of the models appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Canon T1i, f/4, 1/50 sec., ISO-1600, 55mm focal length.

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