In the summer of 1958, reports started appearing in the photography magazines of the day about a beautiful new SLR film camera: the Zunow.
It had everything: sharp, spectacularly high-speed lenses and an array of professional features unmatched at the time. And, oh, how I lusted after one!
The Zunow (sometimes referred to as the Zunowflex) combined the first internally coupled, fully automatic diaphragm and a rapid film-wind lever (not the first, but still uncommon) with a removable pentaprism, an instant return mirror (which they called the “Wink Mirror”) and a bright viewfinder that covered 100% of the frame.
Though the first SLR to boast a 100% viewfinder was the Italian Rectaflex of 1948, the vast majority of SLR viewfinders of the day showed roughly 90 to 92% of the frame, assuming a slide mount would cover the rest. But for critical work, 100% coverage was rare but essential for professionals.
The Zunow even had a right-side, front-mount shutter release – which meant that you squeezed the shutter release into your palm, reducing camera shake. And all this was packed into an elegant, compact body size that would not be seen again until the Olympus OM-1 appeared in 1972.
Zunow Optical was a small Japanese lens maker that became famous for its incredibly high-speed lenses, particularly its 1953 50mm f/1.1 for Contax, Nikon and Leica cameras, which was the fastest lens in the world (in fact, it went unmatched by anybody until Nikon introduced its own 50mm f/1.1 50mm Nikkor in 1956).
Until its camera came along, Zunow had made most of its money building lenses for other camera companies – notably the famous Miranda T, which came with a Zunow f/1.9.
Thus, Zunow offered a full range of lenses for its camera – including a 58mm f/1.2 (the fastest SLR lens at the time) as well as the more reasonably priced 50mm f/1.8 and an array of others, such as a 35mm f/2.8, 100mm f/2, 200mm f/4, 400mm f/5.6 and an 800mm f/8.
They all used a unique breech-lock mount, similar to the Praktika and the later Canon SLRs. Because the body was remarkably thin, Zunow was able to offer adapters for both Pentax / Praktica (M42 mount) and Exakta lenses. What more could a modern photographer want?
Production started in August 1958, with each camera being hand-assembled at a rate of up to 8 bodies per day. At about the same time, however, two of Zunow’s major lens customers went bankrupt.
Sadly, the cameras proved unreliable and it is likely that fewer than 500 were made before Zunow closed its doors at the end of 1960 – when it was absorbed by one of its main lens customers, Yashica.
It's for this reason that examples are incredibly rare and regularly command obscene prices on the used market. So, if you somehow get lucky and spot on while rummaging through old film cameras at a flea market, make sure you snap it up!
Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.
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