Corfield Periflex
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The Periflex 35mm camera was launched by K. G. Corfield Ltd, England in May 1953 as the first and original model from this source. The camera resembles the Leica Standard and qualifies fully as a Leica copy. However, film loading is by way of a removable back, and it provides through the lens visual focusing using an inverted periscope to be lowered into the light pass between the lens and the film, utilising the single-lens reflex principle, showing a small section from the lower middle of the full image. The Periflex became quite popular in Britain and several improved models were introduced during the ensuing years until their demise in the early 1960s.
The body is made of black painted metal alloy castings, while the top and base-plates are of black anodised stamped aluminium with delicate engravings. The covering material of the first two hundred units or so were brown pigskin, while all later ones were finished in black leather cloth because the pig skin stained easily. Also for this reason, whenever a camera was returned to the Wolverhampton works for service, the brown covering would be replaced without charge, if the owner so desired.
The knobs and controls on the top-plate are turned and milled from solid aluminium. Engraved numerals and arrows in the top plate indicate their respective function and mode of operation. A semiautomatic decrementing frame-counter is built into the wind-on knob visible through a small cutaway window in the knob. A small button next to it, which also doubles as a film rewind release, allows the wind-on knob to be turned back and forth to set the frame counter to the number of frames remaining on the loaded film.
The optical viewfinder, with individual eyesight adjustment, is mounted in an accessory shoe slightly offset to the left-hand side on the top plate. It matches the field-of-view of the standard 50mm camera lens. It may be replaced by separately available ones matching the field of view of interchangeable lenses of the photographer's choice.
The built-in focusing aide is situated centrally on the top plate. It is lowered manually into the light pass behind the camera lens and held in position against spring tension by pushing a small knob on the side of the periscope to its down position. The motive is shown magnified on a focusing screen inside the periscope, making it particularly useful for macro and copy work.
The cloth focal-plane shutter provides speeds from 1/30 to 1/1000 sec. and B. The shutter release button is situated on the right-hand camera front externally threaded for Leica cable release. The shutter control is the small milled knob on the top with numerals from 30 to 1000 and B engraved around it. It serves dual purposes, for winding the shutter in a single anti-clockwise motion until a catch arrests it, and thence as a lift and turn type shutter speed selector. A standard coaxial flash synchronising socket is situated at the front of the camera, below the shutter release button.
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