The company Aktiengesellschaft für Anilinfabrikation was founded in Rummelsburg (now in the Lichtenberg borough of Berlin) in 1867. In the past, Agfa film and cameras were prominent consumer products.

Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory was established in 1933. In February 1936, they released their first commercially available camera, the "Hansa Canon". In 1937, the company was renamed to Canon.

The Contaflex series is a family of 35mm SLRs produced by Zeiss Ikon in the 1950s and 1960s. When introduced in 1953, Contaflex SLR was the first 35mm SLR equipped with a between-the-lens leaf shutter.

Contax was a camera brand noted for its unique technical innovation. The Contax was designed as the heart of a photographic system from the start. It was Zeiss Ikon's showcase of the technology it possessed.

The Edixa Reflex cameras were West Germany's most popular own series of SLR's with focal plane shutter, manufactured by The Wirgin company. Until 1959 four lines of Edixa SLRs were introduced: Type A,B,C,D.

Fuji Shashin Film K.K. was founded in 1934, producing several sorts of film. The company name became Fuji Shashin Kōki K.K. in 1944. Fuji began producing cameras in 1948 with the Fujica Six. Many cameras made by Fuji were called Fujica (contraction of Fuji and Camera).

The film maker Ilford held over 50% of UK's 35mm market with Sportsman cameras in its heyday (the 1960s). Nowadays it's mainly known as maker of B&W film. In earlier decades it offered cameras, many made by other camera makers like Dacora, AGI or Kershaw-Soho.

Eastman Dry Plate Company was founded in 1881. The "Kodak" camera was introduced in 1888. After years of advertising the brand Kodak the company was renamed to Eastman Kodak Co. In 1900.

Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten (meaning Japanese-German camera shop). It is best-known for making the first integrated autofocus 35 mm SLR camera system. In 2003, Konica Corporation merged with Minolta to form Konica Minolta. In 2006, Konica Minolta sold a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony as a move to pull completely out of photographic business.

The Miranda Camera Company, originally named the Orion Camera Company, produced a range of over 30 models of 35mm Single Lens Reflex cameras, between first prototypes in 1953 through to the last production model in 1978.

Nikkormat (Nikomat in Japan) was the brand used by Nippon Kogaku K. K. (Nikon Corporation since 1988) from 1965 to 1978 to name two popular but otherwise unrelated series of SLR cameras, the F-series and EL-series.

Nippon Kōgaku was established in 1917 when two leading optical manufacturers merged. The name Nikon was created in 1946. The company subsequently renamed as Nikon Corporation, after its cameras.

Olympus was established in 1919. Their first truly innovative camera series was the half-frame format PEN models launched in 1959. The OM system, a full frame professional SLR system, was launched in 1972.

Asahi Optical was founded in 1919 and started manufacturing camera/cine lenses in 1938. Asahi Optical introduced its first 35 mm camera in 1952; the Asahiflex I, which was also the first Japanese 35mm SLR.

Petri Camera Company was an optical and camera manufacturer in Japan, founded in 1907. Petri produced many bellows and single-lens reflex cameras. During the 1960s its main products equalled Nikon's in features at half the price. Petri Camera went bankrupt in 1977. It was revived as Petri Kōgyō K.K. but it abandoned camera production some time thereafter.

Praktica is a brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany. Pentacon is the modern-day successor to Dresden camera firms such as Zeiss Ikon, and for many years Dresden was the world's largest producer of cameras.

In 1938, Riken Kōgaku Kōgyō K.K. announced the Riken No.1, a 3×4cm camera with focal-plane shutter, which was actually released in 1939 as the Gokoku, the first camera produced by the company itself.

Shanghai Seagull Camera Ltd is the oldest camera maker in China, located in Shanghai, China. Seagull has made 21 million cameras since it was founded in 1958. Seagull adopted Minolta's manual SLR mount and camera design under license, and continues to produce it long after Minolta moved on to automatic cameras.

The Yashima Seiki Company began in December 1949 in Nagano, Japan. In June 1953, Yashica introduced their first complete (twin-lens reflex medium-format) camera. In December 1965, Yashica introduced the world’s first electronically controlled 35mm camera, the Electro 35.

Zenit is a Russian camera brand manufactured by the KMZ factory (Krasnogorskiy Mekhanicheskiy Zavod) near Moscow since 1952 and by BelOMO in Belarus since the 1970s. The Zenit trademark is primarily associated with 35mm SLR cameras.