Hilmi Nakipoğlu founded this private camera museum in Bakırköy in 1997 around his own collection, and the museum presents itself as the first camera museum in Türkiye. It holds the best part of a thousand cameras of many makes and sizes, beginning with one built in 1896 and running to the present day, together with photographs and photographic materials.
Alongside ordinary hand cameras there are studio cameras, both the portable kind and the kind that never moved, twin-lens reflexes, spy and miniature cameras, and cameras built for Leica film and for Polaroid. Film, roll film above all, is shown with the accessories that went with it, and the makes on display include Leica, Zeiss, Kodak, Rolleiflex and Rolleicord, Ihagee and Exakta, Pentax, Nikon, Canon, Contax, Minolta, Yashica, Praktica and Derogy. Seen in sequence, the cameras trace how the technology changed from 1896 onwards.
The museum was set up to pass on the idea of collecting itself, particularly to children and young people, and it works as an introduction for anyone with an interest in photography.
The museum is on the fourth floor of the Nefus Nakipoğlu school for children with intellectual disabilities, at Osmaniye Caddesi No: 18/B, and İETT buses and minibuses serve it. The 94 Eminönü-Osmaniye bus stops at Bakırköy Adliye; from there, cross to the street opposite the entrance of the Bakırköy courthouse, walk to the end of it and turn right. From the Anatolian side, take the metrobus to İncirli and pick up the 94 at the stop there.
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 10:00 - 17:00 on weekdays, closed Monday
Entry fee
- Entry fee
- 20 ₺
Getting there
- Access
- Reached by İETT buses and by minibus.
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
