Spy camera

Glossary Terms

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F-21 spy camera from KMZ, designed for concealment image by Joe Lin (Image rights)

A Spy Camera is one designed to be hidden, so as to be used covertly, for spying. Such cameras may be disguised as something else - such as a packet of cigarettes or a handbag.

The term is often, more loosely, used for any subminiature camera. But some of these subminis were exlusively designed and produced for certain national secret servies, for example the Soviet F-21 which originally was made for the KGB in 1950. Later a civilian version was offered. The Swiss Biflex 35 was made in 1945, probably for a British secret service. It took 200 exposures on 35mm rollfilm. It had a Tritar 2cm F2.5 lens. An info video of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung about the former GDR's Stasi showed a special spy camera with thin extra long lens tube to make photos of private sphere thru holes in a living room's walls from the neighbour apartement.

A similar term is 'detective camera', which was a common description of cameras of various designs in the very late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of these were not concealed cameras, but less conspicuous than a conventional field camera (in particular, they are usually hand-held).