Sport (SLR)

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The Sport was one of the two first SLR cameras made for 35mm film, the one made by Soviet camera maker GOMZ. An estimated number of 20000 cameras was produced between 1937 and 1941. According to the sources only the construction plans of the camera were nearly ready in January 1935 . Maybe the earliest prototype has been built at the same time when the prototypes of the Kine Exakta were made by Ihagee in Germany. But whilst the Exakta had been presented to the market in spring 1936, the Sport's production had been planned for the 20th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. According to the sources the launch was around that date, the 7 November 1937. If the Sport's first working prototype was ready earlier than that of the Exakta it would be the world's first 35mm SLR, rather than the German camera, but it's quite unsure. The prototypes of the Exakta were made in the second half of 1935. The prototyping phase of the Sport was much longer. The Exakta'a launch date was more than one year earlier than that of the Sport, but it was easier for Ihagee to make that effort since that camera based on an earlier rollfilm model. The Sport was a new development. It was really a unique camera design, especially its vertically running metal focal plane shutter. A. O. Gelgar was the name of the leading engineer in the camera's early construction stage, later he got support by the constructors Rybnikow and Pimenov.

specifications

  • Type: SLR
  • Manufacturer: GOMZ
  • Year of launch: 1937
  • Film: 35mm in cartride for 2m film, enough for 50 24×36mm exposures
  • Lens: Industar-10 1:3.5/50mm
  • Lens mount: bayonet
  • Shutter: real focal plane shutter made of two metal plates, speeds 1/25 to 1/500 sec.
  • Viewfinder: screen over the mirror, light well with loupe over the screen, additional optical viewfinder
  • Film advance: from one cartridge into a second cartridge
  • Dimensions: 133×103×68 mm
  • Weight: 765 g (with lens)

Links

  • a critical note on the Sport
  • An Italian source confirming the Sport' claim.

Literature

  • Richard Hummel, "Kine Exakta" oder "Sport"? Welches war die erste Spiegelreflex-Kleinbildkamera? Die Lebenswerke von Karl Nüchterlein and A.O. Gelgar, 1997, ISBN 3-89506-160-3 (Kine Exakta or Sport? Which one was the first 35mm SLR? The life-works of K. Nüchterlein and A.O. Gelgar)
  • sources of Hummel's brochure concerning the Sport: Sovjetskoe Foto, issues 1934/7, 1935/1, 1936/4, 1936/7, 1937/11