Whenever I buy old or hard-to-find things from the Internet I often like to look at the user manuals first. But it can often be hard to find them, and I’m grateful when other people take the time to scan or type out their product literature.
I recently bought a Conway box camera, dating back to the late 1950s. It came with a user manual, so it’s the least I can do to scan and reproduce it here. Hopefully it will be useful to somebody.
I’ve also linked the manual on camerapedia.org – a great resource for finding out about vintage cameras.
Jonathan Gazeley 
Hi, just wanted to say thanks for scanning in this manual! I picked up a conway synchronised box camera in a charity shop in Gravesend for £1.50, as I love retro things, and had no idea whether it was in working order or not. Now I’m going to try and source some film for it and give it a test run!
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Hi Hannah, congratulations on finding yourself such a bargain! You’ll need 120 film for your Conway, and the cheapest place I’ve found is MailshotsUK. Have fun! 🙂
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Hannah,
Thank you so much for this manual.
I came across this Comway camera, good British engineering I suppose.
It belonged to my father, he bought it around 1957.
I want to get it to function again.
Regards,
Peter.
Arnhem, Holland.
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Love photography and have decided to start a collection of old cameras. I found this manual on site and have saved following the purchase of the very same camera. Many many thanks, very helpful and kind of you.
Regards
Claire
Hampshire
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Thank you for uploading this manual – they’re so hard to get hold of!
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Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was given a Conway camera bought at an auction or a flea market by friends for my little collection of old cameras fifteen years ago and recently I’ve taken up a course to develop and print black and white film so I started looking for a manual to get an idea of the aperture and rough speed settings.
This manual is just the ticket! The language is so entertaining and simple, it could have been written during a conversation over tea. I found a manual for my Kodak Vest Pocket camera which is similarly expressive but a little more technical, but as it uses 126 film it will have to wait till I buy some online (available again, thank goodness!)
If anything interesting results, it will be due to your efforts in sharing this manual.
Again, thank you!
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I forgot to thank you for sharing the pictures you took with your camera so we could have an idea of what to expect. They’re great!
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You’re welcome! Happy shooting 🙂
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