The Sub Club

MANIGA

The 1930's saw many important developments in submini cameras. Today, most are over-shadowed by the release of the Minox, but other subminiature cameras were released in that decade as well. One French company developed a tiny camera and released it under three names and variants: Maniga, Aiglon and Bobby. The Maniga may be the most uncommon of the trio but has the same cast metal body as the Bobby and Aiglon. The Maniga differs from the others in the front shutter mechanism. There are at least two versions of the Maniga. One has a round front on it which houses the shutter mechanism and has the shutter speeds as M and Z (moment and Zeit) -- see first picture. A second version has an oval front more similar to the front of the Bobby and Aiglon and has the shutter speed of B and 1/25 -- see second picture. These cameras produced 13x14mm images on 17mm paper-backed roll film similar to the Hit cameras. Each sported a dual, slide-out, wire-frame viewfinder like the Mamiya Super 16 series. It is spectulated that the Maniga might have been made for export to German consumers at the time of the Spanish Civil War. A larger Maniga was also made that created 3x4cm images on 127 film. It used the same tiny shutter as the submini Maniga. See Bobby and Aiglon.