The cameras that made history.

The galloping horse sequence

Eadweard Muybridge

12 synchronized photographic cameras

A series of exposures was used to examine whether a galloping horse lifted all four hooves off the ground.

The photographic gun

Étienne-Jules Marey

Chronophotographic gun

A device shaped like a gun captured successive phases of movement and helped pioneer motion analysis.

Photographing motion on one plate

Étienne-Jules Marey

Chronophotographic plate camera

A rotating shutter recorded multiple stages of an action onto the same photographic plate.

First Edison motion-picture tests

Edison laboratory / W. K. L. Dickson

Kinetograph

Dickson and his colleagues developed motion-picture camera technology in Edison’s laboratory.

The Black Maria studio

Edison laboratory

Kinetograph

The rotating early motion-picture studio used natural daylight and Kinetograph cameras.

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Lumière brothers

Cinématographe Lumière

A famous early motion picture made with a compact camera that could also print and project film.

A shared cinema audience is born

Lumière brothers

Cinématographe Lumière

Unlike a peep-show viewer, the Cinématographe brought moving images before an audience.

Early Gaumont fiction films

Alice Guy-Blaché

Likely Demenÿ–Gaumont 60mm chronophotograph

Her memoirs do not identify the exact camera; historical research suggests the 60mm Gaumont apparatus.

Probable model — treat precise model as provisional.

The magician builds a movie camera

Georges Méliès

Robert W. Paul projector converted to 35mm camera

The Cinémathèque française identifies a surviving apparatus of the kind converted for Méliès’s early films.

The Gold Rush

Charlie Chaplin / Rollie Totheroh

Bell & Howell 2709

Totheroh photographed Chaplin using a hand-cranked all-metal Hollywood studio camera.

Chaplin’s own studio camera

Charlie Chaplin

Bell & Howell 2709

The Bell & Howell 2709 was a professional studio investment that Chaplin personally owned.

The Cameraman: an obsolete movie camera

Buster Keaton

Lucien Prévost 35mm hand-cranked camera

The comedy contrasts Keaton’s dated camera with newer press technology.

The Cameraman: the rival’s camera

Buster Keaton

Akeley newsreel camera

The opposing newsreel cameraman uses a technologically advanced Akeley machine.

Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov / Mikhail Kaufman

Motion-picture camera; exact model not asserted

The act of filming becomes a character in this experimental silent documentary.

The Leica and the decisive moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Early Leica 35mm camera

His first Leica became a defining companion in early European street photography.

The Wizard of Oz

Victor Fleming / Harold Rosson

Three-strip Technicolor motion-picture camera

The camera separated incoming light onto three negatives to create Oz’s vibrant color.

Hidden cameras across the MGM set

The Wizard of Oz crew

Multiple cinema cameras (models not established)

A Library of Congress exhibition documents as many as nine cameras concealed around the sets.

Citizen Kane and deep focus

Orson Welles / Gregg Toland

Self-blimped studio cinema camera (model not asserted)

The camera and faster film supported dramatic low angles, movement and deep-focus compositions.

Kubrick as a LOOK magazine photographer

Stanley Kubrick

Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex

A period interview says Kubrick used a standard Rolleiflex before joining LOOK.

Kubrick’s newsroom equipment

Stanley Kubrick

4×5 Speed Graphic

The young photographer lists a Speed Graphic among his working tools.

Kubrick’s small-format camera

Stanley Kubrick

Contax rangefinder

The same contemporary interview records a Contax in Kubrick’s camera kit.

Kubrick’s faster Rolleiflex

Stanley Kubrick

Automatic Rolleiflex

Kubrick moved to an automatic Rolleiflex during his professional photography years.

Her first Rolleiflex

Vivian Maier

Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex

Maier purchased a Rolleiflex in 1952, leading to her defining waist-level street photography.

The camera before the Rolleiflex

Vivian Maier

Kodak Brownie box camera

Maier’s archive identifies an inexpensive Kodak Brownie as her first camera.

Rear Window: L. B. Jefferies’s SLR

Alfred Hitchcock / James Stewart

Ihagee Exakta VX

A working photojournalist turns his still camera into a way of surveying an apartment courtyard.

The giant telephoto lens

Rear Window

Kilfitt Fern-Kilar 400mm f/5.6

The long telephoto lens gives the character his famous close-up view into neighboring windows.

Vertigo camera provenance

Alfred Hitchcock

Mitchell VistaVision No. 30

A museum-held camera is documented as having worked on parts of the film.

North by Northwest camera provenance

Alfred Hitchcock

Mitchell VistaVision No. 30

The same identifiable VistaVision camera is linked by research to filming parts of this Hitchcock classic.

Ben-Hur in MGM Camera 65

William Wyler

Mitchell 65mm camera and Panavision optics

Epic-scale anamorphic photography powered the film’s unusually wide images.

Lawrence of Arabia in the desert

David Lean / Freddie Young

Super Panavision 70 camera system

The epic was photographed in the spherical 65mm Super Panavision 70 format.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick

Super Panavision 70 camera system

Large-format cinematography became a crucial part of the film’s futuristic visual identity.

A Clockwork Orange

Stanley Kubrick

Mitchell BNC motion-picture camera

Kubrick acquired a BNC cinema camera for long takes and the flexibility of special lens work.

Barry Lyndon by candlelight

Stanley Kubrick / John Alcott

Modified Mitchell BNC + Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7

Zeiss lenses adapted to a modified BNC made extremely low-light candle scenes possible.

The wide candlelight lens

Stanley Kubrick

Zeiss 50mm f/0.7 + Kollmorgen adapter (36.5mm equivalent)

A bespoke front adapter gave a wider view while retaining the unusual maximum aperture.

Jaws at sea

Steven Spielberg / Bill Butler

Panavision Panaflex with C Series lenses

The portable camera system helped put audiences next to the water and the shark.

Star Wars: A New Hope

George Lucas / Gil Taylor

Panavision PSR R-200 with C Series optics

Panavision documents the exact camera-and-lens combination used for the original film.

Superman: The Movie

Richard Donner

Panavision PSR R-200

The camera helped photograph a blockbuster whose signature promise was that its hero could fly.

The Shining: hotel corridor tracking

Stanley Kubrick / Garrett Brown

Arriflex 35BL on Steadicam

Low-level tracking shots follow the characters through the Overlook Hotel.

The Shining: maze-running shots

Stanley Kubrick

Arriflex 2C

A lighter film camera was selected for the difficult running shots through the maze.

The Empire Strikes Back miniature effects

Irvin Kershner / ILM

Custom reflex VistaVision motion-picture camera

ILM engineered a specialized reflex VistaVision camera for effects photography.

Back to the Future: Marty’s camcorder

Robert Zemeckis

JVC GR-C1 VHS-C

Marty’s handheld camera records the time-machine experiment at Twin Pines Mall.

Warhol’s portrait Polaroids

Andy Warhol

Polaroid Big Shot Land Camera

Instant-camera portraits became reference images for his commissioned silkscreens.

The camera that photographed the Moon

Apollo 11 / NASA

Modified Hasselblad 500EL Data Camera

NASA describes the modified Hasselblad taken onto the lunar surface.

The command-module camera

Apollo 11 / NASA

Hasselblad 500EL

NASA documents a Hasselblad kept aboard Columbia during the moon landing.

The moving images of the mission

Apollo 11 / NASA

16mm Maurer film camera

Two compact motion-picture cameras formed part of the Apollo 11 imaging kit.

Stereoscopic pictures of lunar soil

Apollo 11 / NASA

Kodak close-up stereo camera

An unusual close-up stereo camera was used to document the lunar surface.

The switch to square portraits

Diane Arbus

Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex

Arbus moved from 35mm to medium-format twin-lens photography in 1962.

The later twin-lens camera

Diane Arbus

Mamiyaflex twin-lens reflex

The National Gallery of Australia describes her later use of Mamiyaflex cameras.

Her earlier documentary tool

Diane Arbus

35mm Nikon camera

Before 1962 she primarily worked with a Nikon 35mm camera.

The view camera landscape kit

Ansel Adams

8×10 large-format view camera

His published working-equipment list includes a full 8×10 view-camera system.

Panoramic landscape negatives

Ansel Adams

7×17 panoramic camera

Adams carried a special-purpose panoramic view camera alongside his main gear.

The traveling photographer

Ansel Adams

Hasselblad system

His equipment inventory includes a Hasselblad system and five lens focal lengths.

Instant feedback in the field

Ansel Adams

Polaroid cameras

The photographer counted two Polaroid cameras among his varied equipment.

His last photographic chapter

Walker Evans

Polaroid SX-70

At age seventy, Evans embraced the instant camera’s portability and directness.

First years with the Big Shot

Andy Warhol

Polaroid Big Shot

Warhol adopted the instant portrait camera shortly after its 1971 introduction.

Warhol’s parties and New York streets

Andy Warhol

Unspecified compact 35mm camera

Warhol also regularly used a small 35mm camera away from his posed Polaroid portraits.

Maier’s later Leica

Vivian Maier

Leica IIIc

The Maier archive identifies a Leica IIIc in her later equipment.

Maier’s unusual SLR

Vivian Maier

Zeiss Contarex

Maier also experimented beyond the Rolleiflex with the Contarex system.

Maier’s Exakta

Vivian Maier

Ihagee Exakta SLR

Her documented equipment includes a German Exakta camera.

Eyes Wide Shut: main cameras

Stanley Kubrick / Larry Smith

Arriflex 535B

A pair of 535Bs recorded much of Kubrick’s final film.

Eyes Wide Shut: Steadicam unit

Stanley Kubrick

Moviecam SL

The lighter Moviecam SL was used with Steadicam to navigate the film’s interiors.

The Matrix in Super 35

Larry and Andy Wachowski / Bill Pope

Panavision Platinum

Bill Pope photographed the film using Panavision Platinum cameras and Primo primes.

The Blair Witch Project: film footage

Daniel Myrick / Eduardo Sánchez

Cinema Products CP-16

A 16mm CP-16 camera was carried by the fictional filmmakers.

The Blair Witch Project: video footage

The Blair Witch Project

Hi8 camcorder; exact model not verified

The video half of the found footage came from a consumer Hi8 camcorder; model naming remains under review.

28 Days Later: deserted London

Danny Boyle / Anthony Dod Mantle

Canon XL1 MiniDV

Small standard-definition cameras made it practical to capture unusually empty city streets rapidly.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson / Robert Yeoman

Arricam Studio 35mm

Yeoman shot on film using Arricam technology for Anderson’s meticulously composed feature.

The Hateful Eight: epic widescreen

Quentin Tarantino / Robert Richardson

Panaflex System 65 Studio

The western revived Ultra Panavision 70 on 65mm negative with specially restored optics.

The Hateful Eight: alternate 65mm body

Quentin Tarantino

Panaflex System 65 High Speed

A second 65mm camera type supported the large-format production.

Tangerine: the iPhone feature

Sean Baker / Radium Cheung

iPhone 5s and anamorphic adapter

An Academy Museum collection object preserves a camera rig used to film the independent hit.

Dunkirk: IMAX battle scenes

Christopher Nolan / Hoyte van Hoytema

15-perf 65mm IMAX cinema camera

About seventy percent of the film was photographed on the large IMAX format.

Dunkirk: supplementary large format

Christopher Nolan

5-perf 65mm Panavision cameras

The remaining footage was captured on 65mm Panavision equipment.

Asteroid City: widescreen

Wes Anderson / Robert Yeoman

Arricam ST and Master Anamorphic lenses

Anamorphic lenses produced clean wide compositions for the film’s desert setting.

Oppenheimer: IMAX

Christopher Nolan / Hoyte van Hoytema

IMAX MKIV and MSM 9802

Kodak documents large-format color and specially manufactured black-and-white film used for the production.

Oppenheimer: the 65mm studio camera

Christopher Nolan

Panavision Panaflex System 65 Studio

Nolan’s film paired giant IMAX units with Panavision’s 65mm studio equipment.

Sinners: Ultra Panavision 70

Ryan Coogler / Autumn Durald Arkapaw

Panavision System 65 Studio

The production revived Ultra Panavision glass for wide images of open landscapes.

Sinners: high-speed 65mm

Ryan Coogler

Panavision System 65 High Speed

The camera package paired 65mm high-speed and studio bodies with Ultra Panatar optics.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

Raintree County

MGM Camera 65 / Ultra Panavision family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

Mutiny on the Bounty

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

The Fall of the Roman Empire

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

The Greatest Story Ever Told

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

The Hallelujah Trail

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

Battle of the Bulge

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

The Ultra Panavision 70 epic

Khartoum

65mm Ultra Panavision / MGM Camera 65 family

An early widescreen epic on the American Society of Cinematographers’ Ultra Panavision filmography; individual camera serial numbers are not claimed.

Sean O’Connell’s Himalayan photo camera

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Nikon F3/T (reported prop identification)

Sean Penn’s photojournalist is seen using a Nikon F3/T-type body with a long telephoto.

Reported identification — treat precise model as provisional.

Peter Parker’s film camera

Peter Parker / Spider-Man

Canon New F-1 (reported identification)

The early-2000s live-action Peter Parker is repeatedly associated with a Canon New F-1.

Reported identification — treat precise model as provisional.

The reboot’s film rangefinder

Peter Parker / The Amazing Spider-Man

Yashica Electro 35 GSN (reported identification)

Collectors identify a Yashica Electro 35 GSN in the Andrew Garfield adaptation.

Reported identification — treat precise model as provisional.

A nostalgic VHS-C camera reappears

Stranger Things / Hawkins

JVC GR-C1 (reported identification)

A JVC camcorder model from Back to the Future later appears in a nostalgic television setting.

Reported identification — treat precise model as provisional.