Between 1949 and 1950 the Mast Development Company worked on a pair of spy cameras for the US Military, both of the prototypes were identical and they used an actual paper Lucky Strike packet as their cover.
The camera itself used a 5-element f/2.7 17.5mm Sonnar-type lens. A focal plane shutter was mounted in front of the lens and provided shutter speeds from B,5,=50,00. Eighteen exposures on standard 16mm film could be made, and each camera came with a light meter – that had been disguised as a packet of Ohio Safety Matches.
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
