The Fabulous Fujipet
By James Grahame
Reevo at Ektopia just dropped us a line about his newly
acquired Fujipet camera. He describes it as "just about the most retro camera you're likely to see." The Fujipet was marketed as a simple simple point-and-shoot camera and wasn't exported out of Japan.
It was originally released in 1957 to shoot medium format (6x6cm negative) film, but the rising popularity of 35mm encouraged Fuji to introduce the Fujipet 35 in 1959. The series went on to sell almost 1 million units. To make things even more amusing, Fuji manufactured this plastic and aluminum camera in three colors: red, black, and green (my fave).
According to the disastrously worded Fujipet page at Mediajoy: " it had such a simple mechanism and function that even children and women could easily make use of it." No way I'm touching that delightful comment without a hundred foot pole and a flack jacket. [Thanks Reevo - wicked cool]
Ektopia introduces the Fujipet
Some great Fujipetish photos (flickr)
An English-language Fujipet site