This is the question I’m asked most often by visitors to this site. As you’d expect it’s not an easy one to answer. Judging by the prices paid on eBay, the answer should be simple enough: Leica M3 in rangefinders and Nikon F2AS in Single Lens Reflex cameras in 35mm format. In medium format, the answer should be Hasselblad and Rolleiflex.

Look at any archive photo from the 1950s or 1960s of press photographers elbowing each other to snap film stars and sports champions and you’ll see plenty of these cameras in use. Turn the print over and you’ll most likely find the photo you’re looking at was taken on one of the same top-of-the-range pro cameras of the period. But, like I say, things are not that clear cut.

Leica and Nikon established well-deserved reputations for superb engineering and optics early on. Their reputations shone so brilliantly that it was not easy for photographers – even professionals – to see the merits in relative newcomers like Yashica, Fujica, Konica, and other names that shone less brightly.

Yet, as some of the pictures on this site show, The Yashica Electro 35 was capable of rivalling the Leica M3 for sharpness and contrast and the Fujica GW690, with its big 6 cm by 9cm negative, was more than capable of rivalling the Hasselblad. In some cases, these rivals to the top makes are being belatedly recognised by today’s film photographers. You now have to pay around £500 ($600) for the Fujica, although it’s still possible to find a Yashica Electro 35 for only one-tenth the cost of a Leica M3.

I hope the words and pictures on this site will encourage photographers new and old to try film and that my details descriptions will help them to discover for themselves what is the best camera ever made.