Article on the ill-fated Legend Cameras
Toronto. As of July, 1989, the magazine Modern Photography finally quit publication. It was a long run beginning in 1937 as Minicam Photography to capture the nascent 35mm camera era. In its last year, the magazine posted a small article on a new company called Phoenix and its camera line named ‘Legend‘.
Production was to make three models initially: 35-FF, 35-AF and 35-AFD illustrating the Modern Photography blurb. The camera looks to be crudely made of bakelite with a rather steep retail price given it was basically a box camera at heart. Since neither the internet nor McKeown’s have information on the cameras or the maker, they may never have made it to market or if they did, the cameras bombed.
My thanks to my friend, George Dunbar, for this tiny bit of history at the end of the long run of an influential photography magazine.
The title ‘I am a Legend‘ is that of a 1954 horror novel that spawned a few scary movies. I read the novel when I was a kid and saw at least one of the movies on TV in small bits sandwiched between dopey commercials. The film was ‘thoughtfully’ cut to fit the TV format and schedule.
