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The history of the single-lens reflex camera began in the early 20th century, but it was not until the 1960s that the format became popular. It remains the camera design of choice for most professional and ambitious amateur photographers. more...

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Current Basic Design

Early large and medium format SLRs

The single-lens reflex camera design concept was developed in the early 1900s with large format equipment. Graflex of the United States and Konishi in Japan produced SLR cameras as early as 1909 and 1907 respectively. While SLR cameras were not very popular at the time, they proved useful for some work. These cameras were used at waist level; the ground glass screen was viewed directly, using a large hood to keep out extraneous light. In most cases, the mirror had to be raised manually as a separate operation before the shutter could be operated.

Following camera technology in general, SLR cameras became available in smaller and smaller sizes; medium format SLRs soon became common; at first larger box cameras, and later "pocketable" models such as the Ihagee Vest-Pocket Exakta of 1933.

Development of the 35 mm SLR

Exakta

The first 35mm SLR camera was the German-made Ihagee Kine-Exakta, produced in 1936, which was fundamentally a scaled-down Vest-Pocket Exakta. This camera used a waist-level finder.

Various other models were produced such as the Kine-Exakta, the Kine-Exakta II, the Exakta Varex (identified in the United State as the 'Exakta V'), the Exakta Varex VX (identified in the United States as the 'Exakta VX'), the Exakta VX IIa, the Exakta VX IIb, the Exakta VX500 and the Exakta VX1000. Exakta also manufactured less expensive cameras under the 'Exa' camera label such as the Exa, the Exa II, the Exa IIa, the Exa IIb (which was generally not considered part of the "official" Exa line), and the Exa 500.

Zeiss

Zeiss had begun work on a 35mm SLR camera in 1936 or 1937. This camera used an eye-level pentaprism, which allowed eye-level-viewing of an image oriented correctly from left to right. Waist-level finders, however, showed a reversed image, which the photographer had to mentally adjust for, while composing the image by looking downward and viewing and focusing. To brighten the viewfinder image, Zeiss incorporated a fresnel lens in-between the ground-glass screen and the pentaprism. This design principle became the conventional SLR design used today. However, World War II had intervened, and the Zeiss SLR did not emerge as a production camera until Zeiss, in the newly-created East Germany factory, introduced the Contax S in 1949. This camera was the first "fixed" eye-level pentaprism 35mm SLR.

Read more at Wikipedia.org