Beginning in the late 1940's, Bencini of Milan Italy produced a number of uniquely designed 127 cameras under the "Comet" name, culminating with the very distinctive vertically situated Comet III of 1953 that remains today as a highly distinctive and desirable camera among collectors, fetching prices of over $100 on the collector market.
This review is however not of the Bencini Comet. I may be a quirky guy with a camera but I am also a frugal guy with a family, so my likelihood of picking up a Bencini Comet are pretty slim.
However, I was fortunate enough to pick up a very distinctive 127 camera from the same era, also vertically oriented, and also bearing the Comet name, but made half a world away in the United States by Zenith Camera Corporation.
While a significant amount of American 127 cameras sold in the post war era tend to be of a nearly identical design consisting of using the "half-frame" 127 format and a fixed focus lens, the design of the Zenith Comet is completely distinct from these cameras, and features:
- Near full frame 127 images ranging between 55 and 60mm long.
- An adjustable aperture.
- Instantaneous and time exposure settings.
- A curved film plane.
- Adjustable focus from 4 feet to infinity.
- A uniquely inset viewfinder.
