The camera of the Vietnam war
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 1:07 pm
American soldiers who had cameras in Vietnam... and most of them probably did... it's likely they had one like one I just got for $5. It's identical to one I had in Vietnam. Only , before I had enough sense to know what I'd later wish I had kept, I tossed it one day lost to memory. I posted this on a vintage camera page on facebook.
The size was pretty right for a pocket camera too... or would have been if it wasn't so thick.The camera of the American soldier in Vietnam had only one shutter speed and one aperture and you didn't set the film speed because it wasn't a factor that could be controlled. No need for a light meter. The film came in a pop in cartridge and the negatives were square. It was possible to add a flash bulb cube but nobody ever had any. Much real recorded history and most real combat photography of the Vietnam War was made with one like it. The original adventure camera for the later 20th Century. You could accidentally dunk it in a river and then dry it out and it would keep on working....just pop in a new film cartridge. Certainly rain and little mud didn't do anything to hurt it. And if you dropped it out of a Huey on an Eagle Flight you could replace it with a another camera just like it for less than $20. Most of the photos donated to the photo album at my site 6thofthe31st.com were taken by ordinary combat soldiers with a camera like this one. And most of the photos are now at the National Infantry Museum for posterity. How many professional war photographers have their images saved anywhere? Too bad they stopped making the film cartridges for these simple cameras lots of years ago.