Vintage viewfinder cameras.

Over a distance of 3 metres or 10ft, focus accuracy tends to be less critical, and this lead to the viewfinder camera. The viewfinder camera gives the photographer a means to directly judge what will be in the picture, either through a wire frame, a fore/back sight or a arrangement with lenses to judge what is in frame. Focus, if it was possible at all would have been set against a scale, aperture and speed controls could similarly be pre set if fitted, the majority of viewfinder cameras are thus fitted. This went a long way to solving the immediacy issues that photographers sought. So well in fact that thousands of different designs proliferated, making this the largest segment by far, somewhat helped by the fact that with few complexities these cameras tended to be affordable. The only drawbacks were the inability to directly judge depth of field and difficult focus control below 10ft. The former could be solved using a scale frequently supplied on the camera and the latter with a separate rangefinder accessory or a measuring tape for the keenest viewfinder camera advocates. These types of camera rarely focus closer than a metre or so, as parallax errors arise given the offset viewing method. Given the longevity of the viewfinder camera there are many variations, metal, plastic, different formats, some folding, some collapsing, fixed focus, fully adjustable, cheap or beautifully refined - the viewfinder camera has it all.

Those in the LICM collection are listed here in date order, starting with the oldest.