December 1949 Graflex Ad inPopular Photography
Toronto. Thanks once again to George Dunbar for this crisp ad about the Graphic/Graflex cameras. It appeared in the December 1949 issue of Popular Photography.
The big deal on the Graflex was twofold: An extra bright viewfinder courtesy of an Ektalite field lens and an auto full aperture lens which closed to a predetermined stop just before taking an exposure.
Nearly a decade later I bought an Exakta 35mm SLR with a beautiful bright viewfinder using the same concept to give a bright image and lenses that could be preset to stop down before the exposure was made – one lens stopped down automatically and the other two with a special pre-set aperture ring. This was my first experience with such a large and bright viewfinder.
As to the Graphic, it boasted a coated and colour corrected lens with built-in flash capability at all speeds (i.e. it had a leaf shutter in the middle of the lens).
