Ansco

The Ansco Autoset camera was marketed by Ansco of Binghamton, New York in circa 1960 and manufactured by Minolta for Ansco. It was the same as the Minolta Hi-Matic. This 35mm camera was also similar to Ansco's Anscoset features, except it did not have the match-needle metering adjustment, this camera was fully automatic. The Camera was fitted with a Rokkor f2.8 45mm lens and a shutter providing speeds from 1/30th to 1/800th of a second with automatic setting. A single dial sets itself automatically for perfect flash exposures. Other features included a rapid-wind film advance lever located on the top and a coupled rangefinder- viewfinder

With this camera, an Ansco Autoset model, astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr., took the first human-captured, color still photographs of the Earth during his three-orbit mission on February 20, 1962. Glenn's pictures paved the way for future Earth photography experiments on American human spaceflight missions.

For ease of use by Glenn, NASA technicians attached a pistol grip handle and trigger to this commercial 35-mm camera, which is upside down from its normal orientation. Because Glenn was wearing a spacesuit helmet and could not get his eye close to a built-in viewfinder, NASA engineers attached a larger viewfinder on top. Glenn found the camera easy to use, in part because he could exploit zero-gravity's advantages. "When I needed both hands, I just let go of the camera and it floated there in front of me," he said in his later memoir.