STEKY III

The first camera with the Steky name appeared in 1947. It is often listed as the first Japanese camera to use 16mm film. It would be more accurate to say that it was the first "successful" Japanese camera to use 16mm film. Whatever, it started a long-lived series of cameras that are still sought after today. Their unique vertical styling makes them quite an attraction. Perhaps the most popular model was the Steky III. It appeared somewhere between 1950 and 1952. No one seems to know for sure. It's stamped III on the body, but some are marked "Made in Occupied Japan" on the bottom of the camera, suggesting that they appeared before the end of Occupation in 1951 -- the last year that Japanese manufacturers were required to labels their products this way. The Skeky III's features were not remarkably different from the original model -- and not at all different from the model II -- but then even the original had nice features. The Steky III has an interchangeable, three element, 25mm (f3.5-16) lens. The focus is fixed at around 12 feet and had adequate depth-of-field. Shutter speeds of B, 1/25-1/100. The image size is 10x14mm. All Steky's were designed to use double perforated film, but single perf will work as well. Unperforated film is a problem since the camera was designed to use the perforations to advance the film and film counter. Despite this, people have reported that unperforated film will work if you advance the film slowly. Not only was the basic camera flexible, but there were several accessories available, such as a 40mm (f5.6 - 16) telephoto lens, a 40mm (f3.2 - 16) lens -- both focusing to 3.5 feet -- and a 17mm wide-angle slip-on converter, filters (UV, red, green, 80A), lens hoods, cases, pocket tripod, flash gun, viewfinder masks, clip-on viewfinders, nifty little case and more. No PC contact. It's no wonder that these cameras are sought after -- AND USED. And if you have a Steky that needs repair, we now have a section in the CREATIVE CORNER detailing how to repair the camera yourself -- with lots of pictures. See also the descriptions of the Steky IIIA and the Steky IIIB.