Argus C3

Argus C3
	Argus C3
Overview
Maker	Argus
Released	October 1939
Lens
Lens mount	Screw mount
Lens	Interchangeable
Sensor/medium
Film format	35 mm
Film size	35 mm × 24 mm
Film advance	Manual
Film rewind	Manual
Focusing
Focus	Coupled rangefinder
General
Made in	Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Last updated September 26, 2024

The Argus C3 was a low-priced rangefinder camera mass-produced from 1939 to 1966 by Argus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The camera sold over 2.2 million units, making it one of the most popular American cameras in history. Due to its shape, size, and weight, it is commonly referred to as "The Brick" by photographers (in Japan its nickname translates as "The Lunchbox"). The most famous 20th-century photographer who used it was Tony Vaccaro, who employed this model during World War II.

History

The C3 was introduced in October 1939 as an improved version of the C (1938) and C2 (1938–42). All three models shared the same "brick" design, attributed to Gustave Fassin, but the C3 was by far the most successful. The original Argus C was equipped with an uncoupled rangefinder which required the user to manually rotate the lens barrel to match the rangefinder reading, while the C2 coupled the rangefinder to the lens to allow one-step focusing. The C3 added built-in flash synchronization but was otherwise identical to the C2. It originally retailed for $35, equivalent to $767 in current dollars.^[1]

The C3 proved hugely successful, selling approximately 2 million units during its 27-year production run. Although the boxy design was neither stylish nor ergonomic, customers were reportedly drawn to the camera's "scientific" appearance with its many gears, knobs, and dials. The C3 also developed a reputation for rugged durability and sharp, high-quality images.^[1] Photographers affectionately nicknamed it "the brick". The C3's enduring popularity allowed it to outlast nearly all of its American competitors, including the Kodak 35 Rangefinder, but it was not able to compete with the flood of inexpensive Japanese single lens reflex cameras entering the market in the 1960s and was finally discontinued in 1966.

Although the design is over 75 years old, many C3s are still in use.^[2] The cameras are inexpensive on the used market and their simple construction makes them relatively easy to repair.

Specifications

The C3 was constructed primarily of bakelite with metal castings for the front and back. The design featured an unusual but simple diaphragm shutter built into the camera body, so the camera could make use of interchangeable lenses without the need for a complex focal plane shutter. The rangefinder was separate from the viewfinder and was coupled to the lens through a series of gears located on the outside of the camera body. The camera came equipped with a 50 mm f/3.5 Cintar anastigmat triplet lens. The lenses were made under contract by Bausch & Lomb, Ilex, and Graf Optical, which was taken over by Argus in 1939, with varying quality.^[1]

Models

The series began in 1938 with the Argus C, equipped with a rangefinder which was not coupled to the lens. Focusing a C is a two step process, first finding the distance using the built-in rangefinder, then focusing the lens by rotating it until a scale on the side matches the distance given by the rangefinder. Very early production C cameras had high and low range shutter speeds marked on the speed dial, with a separate switch to select the desired speed range. The high/low speed selector was soon deleted from production, and speeds controlled by the rotary dial with 10 marked speeds.

The C was replaced within just a few months by the C2, with a geared coupling between the rangefinder and the lens, greatly accelerating focusing and making the camera much more convenient to use. Finally, in 1939 the C3 was introduced, with electrical plugs on the cameras left side for a battery-powered flash, synchronized to the shutter.

The basic C3 model underwent only minor revisions from its introduction until it was discontinued in 1966. For instance, the number of shutter speeds was lowered from ten to seven to five, an accessory shoe was added, and the exposure reminder dial on the back of the camera was removed. There was a variant featuring color-coded exposure controls known as the Colormatic. A second-generation C3 with an improved lens and more comfortable controls, the Standard C3, came out in 1958, though it was otherwise nearly identical to its predecessor.

Three variants were offered in addition to the basic C3: the Matchmatic, Golden Shield, and C33. The first two, produced from 1958 to 1966, were sold with a selenium light meter attachment but were otherwise essentially identical to the Standard C3. Both models also featured distinctive finishes: two-tone tan and black leatherette on the Matchmatic and metallized PET film coating on the Golden Shield. The C33, sold from 1959 to 1960, was a significant departure from the basic model though it still featured the classic "brick" shape. It offered numerous improvements over the older model including an integrated rangefinder and coupled light meter.

Notable users

World War II soldier and photojournalist Tony Vaccaro took most of his images with an Argus C3, even developing the images in soldiers' helmets. Duane Michals used a C3 to make double exposures. Helen K. Garber's father, Alex Kolikow, taught her how to shoot with his Argus C3. A C3 used by U.S. President Jimmy Carter is on display at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta.

In popular culture

The C3 has frequently appeared in film. It was the camera used by Spy Magazine photographer Elizabeth Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) in The Philadelphia Story (1940), by Claire Dodd in the 1941 Abbott and Costello film In The Navy, by Max Showalter in the 1953 film Niagara and by Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004). A C3 appears prominently in the 1991 music video Into The Great Wide Open by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. A C3 Matchmatic was used by Colin Creevey in the 2002 film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets . A C3 is the first camera used by Therese (Rooney Mara) in the 2015 film Carol . It's also appears in fifth episode of second season of The Terror: Infamy and 2018 war horror film Overlord . It appears as craftable weapon in the online action role-playing game Fallout 76 under the name “ProSnap Deluxe camera”.

Related Research Articles

Leica Camera AG is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869, in Wetzlar, Germany. The name Leica is derived from the first three letters of the founder's surname (Leitz) and the first two of the word camera: lei-ca.

Minox is a manufacturer of cameras, known especially for its subminiature camera.

Zorki is the name of a series of 35mm rangefinder cameras manufactured in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1978.

Mamiya Digital Imaging Co., Ltd. is a Japanese company that manufactures high-end cameras and other related photographic and optical equipment. With headquarters in Tokyo, it has two manufacturing plants and a workforce of over 200 people. The company was founded in May 1940 by camera designer Seiichi Mamiya and financial backer Tsunejiro Sugawara.

Kiev is a Soviet and Ukrainian brand of photographic equipment including cameras manufactured by the Arsenal Factory in Kyiv, Ukraine. The camera nameplates show the name "KIEV", with older cameras using "КИЕВ" or "КИЇВ" in Cyrillic.

Contax began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss interchangeable lenses. The final products under the Contax name were a line of 35 mm, medium format, and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Japanese multinational Kyocera, and featuring modern Zeiss optics. In 2005, Kyocera announced that it would no longer produce Contax cameras. The rights to the brand are currently part of Carl Zeiss AG, but no Contax cameras are currently in production, and the brand is considered dormant.

The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass-produced from 1934 until around 1996, and also the name of the factory that made it.

Bronica also Zenza Bronica was a Japanese manufacturer of classic medium-format roll film cameras and photographic equipment based in Tokyo, Japan. Their single-lens reflex (SLR) system-cameras competed with Pentax, Hasselblad, Mamiya and others in the medium-format camera market.

The Canonflex is a Canon 35 mm film single-lens reflex (SLR) camera introduced in May 1959. Its standard lens is the Canon Camera Co. Super-Canomatic R 50mm lens f/1.8. The camera was in production for one year before it was replaced by the Canonflex R2000, adding a 1/2000 sec. shutter speed.

Hi-Matic was the name of a long-running series of 35 mm cameras made by Minolta. The original Hi-Matic of 1962 was the first Minolta camera to feature automatic exposure and achieved a small degree of fame when a version was taken into space by John Glenn in 1962.

Argus was an American maker of cameras and photographic products, founded in 1936 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Argus originated as a subsidiary of the International Radio Corporation (IRC), founded by Charles Verschoor.

Retina was the brand-name of a long-running series of German-built Kodak 35mm cameras, produced from 1934 until 1969. Kodak Retina cameras were manufactured in Stuttgart-Wangen by the Kodak AG Dr. Nagel Werk which Kodak had acquired in December 1931.

The Konica Hexar RF is a 35 mm rangefinder camera which was sold by Konica. It was introduced to the market on 13 October 1999. and subsequently discontinued some time before the end of 2003. The camera used the "Bayonet Konica KM-mount", a copy of the Leica M-mount, thus sharing interchangeable lenses with those designed for Leica cameras and others compatible with them. The Hexar RF has a combined rangefinder/viewfinder modeled on that of Leica cameras, a similar body shape and size - and so is similar to Leica M-mount cameras in many aspects of operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FED 2</span> Camera model

The FED 2 was a 35 mm rangefinder camera introduced in 1955 by FED. The name of FED comes from the initial of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.

The Kodak Retina Reflex is a discontinued series of four single-lens reflex cameras made by Kodak in Germany between 1957 and 1974, as part of the Kodak Retina line of 35mm film cameras.

The Kodak 35 Rangefinder is an improved version of the Kodak 35 that was launched by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1938 as their first 35mm camera manufactured in the USA. After some two years, the Company presented this improved Kodak 35 camera, with a new superstructure housing containing a viewfinder and a separate rangefinder, but without any addition to the identifying inscription on the body. It is generally referred to as the Kodak 35 Rangefinder model.

Contarex is a line of 35mm single lens reflex cameras (SLRs) made by Zeiss Ikon. It was first presented at Photokina in 1958 and initially scheduled for delivery in the spring of 1959, but it was not made generally available in the United States until March 1960. The first model is popularly known as the Contarex I, the Bullseye, or the Cyclops, after the prominent light meter window above the lens, in front of the pentaprism. The camera was aimed at the high-end and professional markets; in 1961, the retail price was $499.

The Mamiya C series is a line of twin-lens reflex medium-format system cameras manufactured by Mamiya between 1956 and 1994. It was developed from the Mamiyaflex series of cameras built from 1949 to 1956. The Mamiya C series was initially aimed at the professional market.

The Argus Museum, located on the second floor of 525 West William, Ann Arbor, Michigan, features products manufactured by the Argus camera company and tells the stories of the company, the people involved and showcases unique collections connected to Argus. The museum is housed in the Argus I Building, which was one of the facilities where Argus products were manufactured.

The Vito and Vitomatic, Vitoret, and Vito Automatic were several related lines of 35 mm compact viewfinder and rangefinder cameras made by Voigtländer from the 1940s through the early 1970s, equipped with leaf shutters, similar in concept to and marketed against the competing Kodak Retina cameras manufactured by Kodak. All of these cameras were fixed-lens models; the models in the Vito line identified with Roman numerals were equipped with folding mechanisms and collapsible lenses for portability, while the others were rigid, non-folding cameras.

References

1 2 3 Lahue, Kalton C.; Bailey, Joseph A. (1972). Glass, Brass, and Chrome: The American 35mm Miniature Camera. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 140–146. ISBN 978-0806134345.
↑ Wicks, Pamela A. (September–October 2011). "Can the Old Technology of the Argus C3 "Brick" Withstand the Test of Time?". TechTrends. 55 (5): 10. doi: 10.1007/s11528-011-0519-3 .

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[lahue-1] 1 2 3 Lahue, Kalton C.; Bailey, Joseph A. (1972). Glass, Brass, and Chrome: The American 35mm Miniature Camera. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 140–146. ISBN 978-0806134345.

[2] Wicks, Pamela A. (September–October 2011). "Can the Old Technology of the Argus C3 "Brick" Withstand the Test of Time?". TechTrends. 55 (5): 10. doi: 10.1007/s11528-011-0519-3 .

[1]

[2]