Cameras made in Germany (West or East)
What is it? This is a Kodak Duo Six-20 Series II medium format camera which was designed by Nagel Kamera Werk for Kodak AG by August Nagel. The word “duo” was Kodak’s way of saying “half frame”, meaning the camera too 6cm x 4.5cm images instead of “full frame” 6cm…
This is a Kodak Retina Reflex IV 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera made by Kodak AG in Stuttgart, West Germany between the years 1964 and 1967. The Retina Reflex series was a continuation of the earlier rangefinder Retina, and shared many of the same parts, including the body, lens mount, and…
What is it? This is a Voigtländer Vitomatic IIa 35mm rangefinder camera made by Voigtländer from 1960 to 1964. The Vitomatic IIa was a compact but very heavy camera that packed quite a bit of features into such a small body. It had a coupled selenium cell exposure meter with a match…
What is it? This is an Icarette 500/15 folding camera made by Zeiss-Ikon in Dresden, Germany around 1930. It takes 116 roll film and shoots negatives that are 6.5cm x 11cm in size making it one of the largest roll film cameras. This camera was most likely one of the…
What is it? This is a Leica M3 35mm rangefinder camera, built by Ernst Leitz GmbH from 1954 to 1966. It was the first Leica that used the Leica M lens mount, the first Leica with a coincident image rangefinder, and the first Leica with a wind lever. It is…
What is it? This is an AGFA Optima I produced between the years 1960 – 64. It was the followup to the original Optima from 1959 which was one of the very first cameras with a fully automatic program auto exposure mode. It’s selenium meter would allow the camera to…
This is a Certo Dollina II rangefinder camera made in Dresden, Germany by Certo Camera Werk. The Dollina II was first introduced in 1936, only a year after the Dollina I which did not have a rangefinder, making the Dollina series the second cameras ever made designed to use Kodak’s new…
What is it? This is a Voigtländer Rollfilm folding camera that was made between the years of 1927 – 1931. The Rollfilm was one of Voigtländer’s first attempts at a camera that used roll film. I guess they didn’t think it was necessary to give it a unique sounding name, and just…
This is a Wirgin Presto folding camera made by Wirgin Kamerawerk out of Wiesbaden, Germany in the mid 1930s. Narrowing down the exact year this camera was built is difficult due to very little information being available. The Presto was the upscale version of the nearly identical Wirgin Auta. All…
What is it? This is a Zeiss-Ikon Nettar 515 which is a medium format folding camera which takes sixteen 6cm x 4.5cm images on 120 roll film. This was the third model in the long-lived Nettar line and first went on sale in 1937. The Nettar line of cameras shared…
This is a Voigtländer Vito II 35mm folding camera which was in production from 1949 – 1954. The Vito II was the successor to the earlier Vito model which was introduced in the late 30s as Voigtländer’s first 35mm camera. The first Vito did not use standard 135 format 35mm film, but…
What is it? This is a Kodak Retina 35mm folding camera made by Kodak AG of West Germany. This particular model is a type 119 Retina which means it was made between the years of 1936 and 1938. It was the third Retina model after the original type 117 and…
