Universal Meteor
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| Universal Meteor image by Andrea Wiggins (Image rights) |
Universal's Meteor (circa 1947-1949) is a medium format (620 film) camera produced by the Universal Camera Corporation in New York City, NY. It featured a coated lens, adjustable diaphragm, collapsible lens mount, rotary focusing mount, built-in lens shade, built-exposure meter - calculator, built-in synchronized flash, optical viewfinder, charger loading, tripod socket, and square pictures (6cm x 6cm negatives). It originally sold for "only $15.00!" Adjusted for inflation, $15 in 1947 has the same buying power as $145.79 in 2010 - or roughly ten times more. The case was $5.00. A flash was $7. It is about 3.75 cm high, 12.6 cm wide and 7.8 cm deep. It weighs about 14.5 oz.
The camera has four apertures of f/11, f/16, f/22 and f/32; it uses an extinction meter, and has a table on a metal plate affixed to the top to show four Weston film speeds of 25, 50, 100 and 200. The Sunny-16 rule is most appropriate for this camera, as most extinction meters from this era are extinct for all practical purposes. The camera back does not open, but instead a loading chamber drops out from the bottom. It can be used with 120 film re-spooled onto 620 spindles.
