Three years after Leica gave the world the first truly viable 35mm camera, along came the American Kamra, made by the QRS company in Chicago. The camera had originally been made in 1927 by the Ellison Kamra Company in Los Angeles, but shortly after its launch, QRS took over manufacture, made it slightly smaller, removed a hinged flap that folded over the lens, moved the viewfinder and resold it under their own name.

 

The Kamra is shaped like an elongated, mottled brown brick and made of a type of Bakelite that uses phenolic resin with a cotton filler. It has a fixed focus, fixed aperture 40mm f/7.7 lens and a single speed shutter that offers a choice of instantaneous or time exposures. All controls are on the top of the body, including the viewfinder which shows an image reflected from a lens poking out the front. About 5ft of 35mm film is pre-loaded into special cassettes. Winding a folding crank on top of the body clockwise pulls the film from one cassette and pushes it into the other. At the same time, a spring is tensioned and, when the crank comes to a stop, it is turned slightly anti-clockwise to release the shutter. A fully loaded cassette produces 40 exposures 24x32mm.

 

In 1929, QRS merged with the DevVry Corporation and the Kamra was discontinued shortly after. These cameras are nearly always found with broken or jammed shutters.