Vintage compact camera: Kodak Instamatic 50

The founder of Kodak, George Eastman, was a bank employee in Rochester, USA. He invented a machine for the industrial emulsion coating of photographic plates (for plate cameras) in 1879. After that, he introduced the ‘American Film’, a paper film roll that was used in the first Kodak box cameras. This would become a transparent film cassette later on.

In the beginning, you could buy the camera for 25 dollars (a huge amount in that time). It was already loaded with film. To develop and print the images, the customer had to send the complete camera to the developing central. Its later, simpler version would become the world famous “Brownie” box camera. It only costed 1 dollar and the user could reload the film himself.

Eastman’s goal was to make photography accessible to the big public. And with success! Who doesn’t know Kodak ..?