Argus buildings:
Argus Inc. was a camera maker based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Before 1939 it was International Research Corporation, a department of International Radio Corporation, Ann Arbor. It was the American company that popularized the modern cartridged 35mm film in the U.S., especially by its characteristically brick-shaped rangefinder cameras. The first camera of Argus, the Argus A, resulted from a patent that the company received in 1936. Before that time the company had produced radios, among them some bakelite models.
Argus became a great name in the Ann Arbor's economy. Several buildings of its heyday are still known as Argus building. One of these pearls of the city's brick architecture has become a modern office building now, with a public area where a permanent exhibition of Argus cameras is shown, the Argus Museum.
Some Argus products were OEM products made by other makers.
![]() |
image 1940's, by Charles Dunlap |
List of Argus Cameras[]
A-series[]
A-series Links[]
C-series[]
- Argus C
- Argus C2
- Argus C3
- Argus C3 colormatic
- Argus C3 Golden Shield
- Argus C3 MatchMatic
- Argus C3 Standard
- Argus C33
- Argus C-twenty
Autronic Series[]
TLR[]
- Argus 40
- Argus 75* Argus Super Seventy-Five
- Argus Argoflex
- Argus Argoflex E
- Argus Argoflex EF
- Argus Argoflex EM
- Argus Argoflex Forty
- Argus Argoflex II
- Argus Argoflex Seventy-Five
Other[]
- Argus A-Four
- Argus C4
- Argus C44
- Argus C44R
- Argus C4 Modified
- Argus C4R
- Argus Model M
- Argus 127 (Whitehouse Products)
- Argus CR-2 (Chinon)
- Argus/Cosina STL 1000 (Cosina)
- Argus Lady Carefree and Argus Flash Sensor 235x (Sedic)
- Argus V-100 (German OEM)
Sources[]
Links[]
- Argus camera timeline
- When was my Argus camera made?, by Phillip G. Sterritt
- Argus still camera and slide projector reference guides, by Phillip G. Sterritt
- Argus C: the first best-selling 135 film camera (1938), at DCView (in Chinese, English translation)
- The Argus Museum: Ann Arbor's Hidden Treasure (PDF), by Henry Gambino, at The Argus Museum
- Argus page at Collection G. Even's site
- Various Argus Camera at Sylvain Halgand's collection
- Argus Camera History on the Argus Company site
- Argus Camera Photographers Group and Pool on Flickr
Manuals[]
Patents[]
Books[]
- DESCHIN, Jacob. Picture making with the Argus C3, C4, A4: A working manual. Camera Craft Pub. Co., San Francisco, 1954. Library of Congress 54012589.
- GAMBINO, Henry J. Argomania: A look at Argus cameras and the company that made them. Aeone Communications, Doylestown (Pennsylvania), 2005. ISBN 0-9770507-0-X.
- KUZYK, Hrad. 35mm for the proletariat: A modern user's guide to the Argus A/A2 camera. Hrad Kuzyk, 2007. ISBN 0615144888.
- LAHUE, Kalton C. and BAILEY, Joseph A. Collecting vintage cameras, vol. 1: The American 35mm. American Photographic Book Publishing Company, New York, 1972. ISBN 081740547X.
- LAHUE, Kalton C. and BAILEY, Joseph. Glass, brass, & chrome. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma, 1972. ISBN 0-8061-0968-8. 2002: ISBN 0-8061-3434-8.
- MURPHY, Burt. Argus 35mm photography. Verlan Books, New York, 1959. Library of Congress 59015881.
- TYDINGS, Kenneth. The Argus 35mm guide and reference book. Greenburg, New York, 1952. Library of Congress 52008125.