EEVblog #816 - Chinon Film Camera Teardown

Find out what 20th century camera technology was like.
Inside a Chinon Genesis II

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[FranLab]

Oh, about the letter - I forgot to add that the camera should be returned in original condition. Good luck!

[BrentBlueAllen]

In the 22nd century when humans are undoubtedly still watching Dave's videos, the viewers won't detect a hint of sarcasm.

[LazerLord]

3:03 So it's not an SLR, but it's just like an SLR? Both use a single lens, and isn't that the requirement for it to be considered an SLR viewfinder? My guess would be that the distinction would be that SLR's can have the lenses removed.

[Psychlist]

I'm always amazed by the number of parts in a camera.

[WouterWeggelaar]

I keep a film camera in my office, and when someone asks if they can borrow my camera (they mean the digital one) I hand them the film camera. After the young players go away with it, they are usually back in some minutes to ask how to view the pictures ;)
Then pop open the back and tell them you forgot to put in the film. Look on their faces: priceless.

I do keep a new film cannister in case they really want to have a go ;)

[lampman]

at 15:20 I think that was a leaf shutter, not an iris. I did not see a curtain shutter behind the mirror that typically belongs on an SLR.

[ZaphodHarkonnen]

Don't forget those memory cards were only formatted to store images. You couldn't reformat them to use elsewhere. Trap for young players. ;)

[FarnhamJ]

Wish videos like this were around when I was a kid! Took apart a disposable camera after I used up all the film, and came across the flash cap. Didn't think it'd have high voltage stuff that stayed charged up in it! It blew two big gouges in my hand a couple millimeters across. Probably a good thing that I learned my lesson early, but man, it sure hurt!

[rymannphilippe]

Another brilliant video from Dave. Thanks. I remember the time with the expensive "memory cards", small correction: back in the old days it used a new sensor for every picture and if the loading mechanism is gone faulty it used the sensor for two picture and give some funny pictures.

[wutzerface]

Thank you Dave! Nothing's better than coming home from hours of work and just kicking back with some food & a beverage to watch your videos for hours. It's either you, How It's Made or the Grand Tour, but you have THOUSANDS of videos for me to endlessly devour, so big thanks from Philly! P.S. - Come visit sometime and have a real cheesesteak

[ArcturusTech]

Wow! This brings back some memories.

I remember working behind a department store camera counter and selling a crap ton of these things back in the day. Although we were "incentivized" (i.e. bribed) with obscenely high spiffs on Chinons, I pushed the brand hard with a clean conscience because they were actually great cameras. The Genesis was an easy sale and flew off the shelves. A bit pricey and a hitherto unknown brand in America, but it filled a gap in the market between high-end autofocus point-and-shoots and entry level SLR kits. The photo quality was pretty much on par with entry-level SLRs and way better than any of the point-and-shoots of the era. Apparently, they sold well enough that we started seeing all the big name SLR makers release their own bridge cameras.

BTW, Chinon marketed another camera around that same time called the "Bellami". It was a nifty little autofocus point-and-shoot that was small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. We sold a lot of those too.

Thanks for the cool teardown, Dave. I always imagined the innards concealed some brilliant old-school Japanese engineering.

[Tommyinoz]

Man, I was really slow on the uptake with this one. It wasn't until Dave started showing the compartment for the "memory card", that I finally started to get the joke.

Very interesting tear down. Thumbs up!

[tripsadelica]

The Chinon Genesis is a bloody good camera and used properly with good film it will create photos that piddle on digital snaps. Such a pity you killed this one in the name of science.

[HotForgeChaos]

I have a Minolta Dynax 7000i sitting here from 1988, takes those same film based memory rolls. Works as good now as it did back in '88. Awesome old camera

[IanTester]

The interesting thing about Chinon is that they ended up making a lot of cameras for other manufacturers. IIRC, many of the last film cameras from Canon and/or Nikon were actually made by Chinon.

[FraserKillip]

To be honest, I was always disappointed with the number of write cycles available in those analogue memory sticks.... Surely we could have at least 10, 000 write cycles like the current day memory cards!!

[Dragoslav_MD]

Amount of sarcasm in this one has set your personal record.

[whatmattersmost]

This was the second model, the Chinon Genesis was the world's first ZSLR made. AWESOME camera!

[Zsolt]

So this camera is from 1980's? I didn't knew that in the 80's already existed digital cameras, but cameras like this... unbeliveable!

[electronicsNmore]

I bet Dave has enough electronic devices stored to do 1 full year of teardown videos. :-)