TTArtisan unveiled a surprising retro folding instant film camera, the 203T, at CP+ this week.
CP+, the world’s largest Camera and Video show, started this week in Yokohama, Japan. PetaPixel has extensive coverage of the event from the podcast to announcements of the latest gear and full reviews.
CP+ is a big deal, so it’s no surprise companies like TTArtisan are using the event to debut exciting new products. TTArtisan, best known for making lenses, is dipping its toes into cameras with the folding instant camera, the 203T.
The 203T comes in four colors: black, red, orange, and blue. All of them share the same features and use Instax Mini film. The camera features a Cooke lens design and supports bulb mode. The lens’s aperture ranges from f/3.5 to f/22, and the camera offers shutter speeds range one second to 1/300s. The 203T is purely mechanical, with no batteries required.
Friend of PetaPixel Gordon Laing of Cameralabs fame is at CP+ and published a video today showcasing a ton of new photo gear from the show floor, including the TTArtisan 203T.
Truly Retro
The use of a Cooke lens is essential here to impose a retro vibe and feel to the images that this vintage-styled camera can create.
As a photographic lens, the Cooke triplet was designed by Harold Dennis Taylor in 1893. As the chief engineer of British company T. Cooks and Sons of York, Taylor’s patented design was the first lens system to eliminate or correct issues known as the Seidel aberrations. These five optical issues: radial distortion or aberration at the outer edge, coma, astigmatism, Petzval field curvature, and spherical aberration are all corrected using just one wavelength with the Cooke design.
The Cooke triplet design accomplishes much with very little. It features three elements in three groups; it was a significant advancement in glass at the time. Since its development, its application has been used not only for cameras but also for binoculars, refracting telescopes, and projection lenses.
Analog enthusiasts will appreciate TTArtisan’s choice of the Cooke lens as well as the complete design of the new 203T. It is reminiscent of a rangefinder folding camera known as the Seagull 203 first released as the Shanghai 203 in 1963, as noted by Kosmo Foto.
Pricing & Availability
While no pricing information is available yet, TTArtisan expects its new camera to arrive this fall.
Image credits: Photographs courtesy of TTArtisan. Video by Gordon Laing.
