Start 66, model IV camera

The first still camera manufactured in Poland after World War II was the Start I (a prototype was built in 1953). Its design was prepared by a team of engineers of Warszawskie Zakłady Foto-Optyczne: Janusz Jirowec, Tadeusz Lisowski and Jan Matysiak. The goal was to develop a cheap, easy to operate camera ensuring high quality photographs, made solely of Polish materials. The shutter in the device was based on the design of the Soviet Lubitiel camera, which was an unlicensed copy of the pre-war German Voigtländer Brillant camera. The Start 66 camera presented here is the fourth model in the family of devices. It is a twin-lens reflex camera, in which the photographs were made on 120 medium format film with backing paper, in a 6x6 cm size. The camera uses a three-element Emitar lens. Manufacturer: Warszawskie Zakłady Foto-Optyczne, Warsaw, 1967-1978 Inv. No. MIM 358/VI-60 Model prepared on the basis of photogrammetric measurements Licence: CC BY-NC-SA