Damn, this could get out of hand.
No list of classics could be complete without including the Rolleiflex. Widely copied by the Japanese, but most successfully by Yashica with the YashicaMat 124. My Rolleiflex is an early 50’s 3.5 MX2 with a Schneider lens. Still works perfectly.
And the Hasselblad—ubiquitous with event pros for decades, and defined the box-SLR concept followed in the pro-camera world since then. Even my Pentax 645z owes its basic shape to the ‘blad.
The ultimate classic press camera of all time was the Speed Graphic—must be included. Yes, I have one—two rangefinders (one for 127mm and one for 8-1/2”), Kalart Focus Spot, windup focal-plane shutter that shouldn’t work but does. Neat camera. The speed graphic was replaced by the Nikon F as the standard press camera, mostly because of Vietnam and Life Magazine.
There were a number of medium-format SLRs in the 35mm tradition of horizontal travel, like the Practisix and the Norita 66. But the Pentax came out with the Pentax 6x7 in 1969 and simply owned that category until the category itself faded away in the early 2000’s. It’s a true classic. I have three and still use them from time to time.
For studio SLRs, the Mamiya RB-67 was a true classic.
The Sinar Norma established the notion of a modular large-format monorail view camera, and became the standard by which others were measured, even brands further upmarket like Linhof and ArcaSwiss. The ownership of the pro view camera category continued with the Sinar P and F models of the 70’s (I have and still use one of each of those). Speaking of Linhof, their Technikardan defined the folding technical camera category basically forever. A true classic. For large format folding-bed cameras, particularly in 8x10, there was Deardorff and then everyone else.
No camera made SLRs safe for casual amateurs like the Canon AE-1. That camera ruled that market and did what the F-1 could never do to make Canon a household name. That said, I still have the F-1 I bought in the 70’s.
Prior to the AE-1, the 35mm SLR for the masses had been the Pentax Spotmatic, surely a classic.
In the digital world, the Canon 10D was the first to really move established film users to digital. And the 5D (the first one) was the first to truly exceed what had been possible with 35mm film. Those are classics in ways the 1D will never be. For casual users, the Rebel was a classic.
There are many others, but each of these shines as the definitive example of their category.
Rick “who owns most of them” Denney