The review copy was provided by WarWheels sponsor Casemate Publishers.

For those unfamiliar with the "Camera On" series, they are mostly photo works, with private pictures taken by German soldiers (as opposed to the official Propaganda Kompanien photographers) gathered by author Alan Ranger and never seen in print before. The quality varies depending on the original pictures and the ratio of very good to passable pics varies from book to book (I have 9 of them so far). In this one the picture quality is generally high, and you're getting a total of 134 photographs!

The vehicles’ states range from brand new looking to destroyed, but the vast majority of the cars are in good condition, displayed in a variety of theaters from Germany to Greece, the Eastern Front, France, Italy and Yugoslavia. It's nice to see a few examples of cars with two instead of just one photo, giving more clues for military vehicles enthusiasts and modellers. Most of the time, one or several soldiers feature on the pics, adding a human aspect to the whole book. There are many informative tidbits within the text. For instance, I learnt a few things about Opel factory civilian finishes (no, all cars weren't gloss black). Another interesting fact is that the Opel Kapitän had the same engine as the 3-ton Opel Blitz truck: for that reason, the production of the cars stopped in October 1939 when military truck production was given top priority.

One thing that struck me was that the captions are amazingly researched and detailed, almost every time you get a micro story around the picture. Very interesting compared to so many military photo books where little effort is put into the caption, often only amounting to educated guesses any military vehicle afficionado could make. In the rare cases when the author can't tell much about a photo (like the Luftwaffe Kapitän on page 63, top), he candidly acknowledges so.

Yet another impressive thing is the coverage given to each type. To be frank I have many books and magazine articles on the subject and had never seen before as many photos of the Käpitan and Admiral for instance.

On the slight downside, I did pick up a very few errors, typos or idiosyncrasies. For instance, I doubt the "Panzerattrape" P4 photo at the bottom of page 11 was really taken in 1930 as the vehicles all have WH licence plates, and in 1930 they would have had RW (Reichswheer) plates. In addition, the author states under the pic of a civilian P4 top of page 9 that “The only thing that would have been changed immediately upon entry into service was a change of number plate to denote it as a military vehicle”. At the same time, many pics in the book obviously show in service vehicles still sporting German civilian plates, albeit with WH lettering on the bodywork to confirm they had been requisitioned.

Conclusion

Very few niggles aside, this is a fantastic book and I'll be ordering volume one very soon to have the perfect reference combo for Opel staff cars in WW2. It will be very interesting for military vehicles enthusiasts, military vehicles collectors and last but not least modellers who will find inspiration and reference for their projects. In 1/35th scale, ICM offer Opel Kadett, Kapitän and Admiral kits (some later reboxed by Revell) and Wespe Models have several Opel resin kits, including the Opel Super 6. Wespe Models also have some 1/72 models such as the 1938 Kadett and the Kapitän.