Ensign Cameo

Released c1928

I was given this camera by my father-in-law as a birthday present. It’s a strange cross between a view camera and a more common folding camera. It has a ground glass focusing screen and front rise, but also has a pop-up sports finder and waist-level finder. Unusually, its default orientation is portrait rather than landscape. It takes sheet film in the now-uncommon 2¼ × 3¼ format. It’s possible to buy this, or cut your own from 120 roll film. It’s my second sheet film camera (after the Instantograph) but it’s the first I can use with modern film, rather than paper negatives.

At a glance