Sportsmaster is a 35mm film viewfinder camera made by Dacora for Ilford and introduced in 1961. It is a renamed variant of Dacora Dacora-Matic 4D.
The Sportsmaster is a fully automatic camera with the novel feature of four shutter release buttons. These buttons are each linked to the lens' helical focussing mount such that, as a button is pressed, the lens rotates to the appropriate pre-set distance according to which button is chosen. These correspond to Landscape (infinity), Groups (13feet, 4m), Full Figure (8feet, 2.5m) and Portrait (5feet, 1.5m). Closer focussing requires the use of a No.1 (dioptre) close up lens (focussing 40 - 14 inches). The automatic exposure system is simple but very inflexible. Depending upon the film speed chosen, the Prontor Lux shutter selects a specific, fixed, shutter speed, viz: 10 ASA selects 1/30, 24 ASA selects 1/60, 50 ASA selects 1/125, 100 ASA selects 1/250 and 200 ASA selects 1/500. The built-in selenium exposure meter then just selects the appropriate aperture, a selection which is visible in a small angled mirror in the top of the viewfinder. This was the simplest automatic system at that times. The lens is Dacora Dignar 45mm f/2.8 in Prontor-Lux leaf shutter.
There is a later version of the camera which has the later f2.8 Cassar lens, a fold-over rewind crank in place of the knurled knob and the exposure counter is now self-resetting. Slightly update version of this model was sold as Hanimex Electra II also.
