Folding camera

A folding camera is a camera that can be folded and unfolded. They usually use a cloth bellow. When folded they give a excellent camera size/film size ratio.This feature was very appealling when the only film formats available were large or medium format films.

Folding cameras were dominant in the camera market from the beginnig of the 20th century to the WWII.The typical amateur camera of the 30's was a folding 6x9 camera using either 120 or 620 film size.

The use of folding camera began to decline after the WW II with the developement of 35mm film format allowing to build compact cameras without using bellow.