Boniforti and Ballerio
Boniforti and Ballerio was a camera maker in Milan in the years immediately after the Second World War. Carlo Boniforti began making and repairing cameras in the 1930s.[1] Dario mondonico refers to a 12- or 24-sheet film magazine among Boniforti's first products.
Boniforti was joined by his partner Agostino Ballerio after the War, and they produced the Perseo Leica-copy in 1947.[1] Boniforti died the next year, and the company coninued under the ownership of his heirs, together with Ballerio. They made a second model of the Perseo in 1949, and in 1955 Ballerio made a prototype of a colour-separation version of it, though this was not manufactured in any large numbers.
In 1952 the firm made the Kobell professional medium-format rangefinder camera for 6x9 cm plates or film. This was re-worked in 1955 as a 6x8 cm camera for roll film. Dario Mondonico states that only about 400 cameras of the Kobell series were made.[1]
Finally, in about 1967, Ballerio's last camera was a 9x12 cm folding-bed plate or film camera, the Linear. Again, very few examples were made.
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Boniforti e Ballerio at Dario Mondonico's Mistermondo.com site: text in Italian, with pictures of the Perseo I and II, Kobell and the folding Linear.
Links
- Perseo and Kobell at Fotocamere Italiane (in Japanese).
