Cameras made in Germany (West or East)
This is a Leica M5, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Ernst Leitz GmBH in Wetzlar, West Germany between the years 1971 and 1975. The Leica M5 was the company’s first metered rangefinder, and the first ever rangefinder camera with TTL metering. In addition to its metering system, the M5…
This is a Voigtländer Vito III, a 35mm folding rangefinder camera, made by Voigtländer AG in Braunschweig, West Germany starting in 1950. The Vito III was the last and best featured of their folding Vito line and the only one available with the Ultron f/2 lens. With the exception of…
This is an Akarette II, a 35mm interchangeable lens scale focus camera produced by Apparate und Kamerabau GmbH in Friedrichshafen, West Germany between the years 1950 and 1954. The Akarette II was one of the higher featured models in a lineup of similarly designed cameras from 1947 to 1962. The…
This is a Certo Dollina III, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Certo Camera Work Dresden in 1938. The Dollina III was the most advanced in the Dollina line of 35mm cameras, improving on the earlier models with a larger body with a built in coupled rangefinder. The Dollina series…
This is a Jena Contax, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Carl Zeiss Jena, in Saalfeld, Germany under direction of the Soviet government after World War II. In the time leading up to Germany’s loss in the war, the Soviet Union had eyed the Zeiss-Ikon Contax for war reparations and…
This is a Voigtländer Prominent, a folding bed rangefinder camera made by Voigtländer & Sohn AG in Braunschweig, Germany starting in 1932. The Prominent shoots both 6cm x 9cm and 4.5cm x 6cm images on 120 format roll film. Shooting of the smaller exposures requires a removable mask to be…
This review is part of the Cameras of the Dead series which features dead cameras that I’ve wanted to review that either didn’t work, or was otherwise unable to shoot. In the past, these reviews used to come out in a set of three every Halloween or what I called…
This is a Bilora Radix 35 BH, a simple scale focus camera made by Kürbi & Niggeloh of Radevormwald, West Germany between 1948 and 1952. The Bilora Radix shoots double perforated 35mm film loaded in Agfa Karat cassettes. Marketed as a competitor to Kodak’s type 135 daylight loading cassette, Karat…
This is a Pentacon Super, a 35mm SLR made by Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden between the years 1968 and 1972. The Pentacon Super was the sole attempt by Pentacon to build a professional level SLR. It had a number of features such as an interchangeable metered prism, open aperture metering,…
This is a Paxette Reflex Automatic, a 35mm single lens reflex camera made by Braun Nurnberg in Nuremberg, West Germany between the years 1958 and 1960. The Braun Paxette Automatic was an SLR version of the long running Braun Paxette series which consisted of a confusing number of scale focus…
This is a Steinheil Casca II, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by C. A. Steinheil Söhne in Munich, West Germany starting in 1949. It was an update to the original Casca I from 1948 adding a coupled rangefinder, a new lens mount, and having a few other changes. The Casca…
This is a Beira II, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by Kamera-Fabrik Woldemar Beier in Frietal, Germany starting in 1935. The Beira II is an upgraded version of the original Beira camera, adding a porro prism focusing prism to the top plate of the camera. Despite the use of a…
