Cameras made in Germany (West or East)
This week, I bring to you the third in a series of articles that were published in the mid to late 1950s about the state of the German Camera Industry. The first two parts were part of a large 42 page special section in the May 1956 issue of Popular…
This is a Zeiss-Ikon Box Tengor 54/2, medium format 6×9 box camera, made by Zeiss-Ikon between the years of 1931 – 1938. This is the third version of the original Box-Tengor, featuring larger viewfinders and an updated design. The Zeiss-Ikon Box-Tengor was a higher quality box camera compared to inexpensive…
This week, I bring to you the second part of a large 42 page special section in the May 1956 issue of Popular Photography where they took a look at the state of the German Camera Industry. You can read the first part here. Like the previous part, this entire…
Last May, I posted a three part series covering articles about the Japanese Photo Industry in the 1950s, and then again in October I re-branded the site for “Red October” where I posted a series of Soviet related articles. Now, it’s Germany’s turn. This will be the first in a…
Prologue Throughout a large portion of the 20th century, the photographic industry was heavily tied to Germany. In addition to cameras and lenses, Germany was also tied to a whole list of atrocities committed by it’s government and the Nazi regime. This is a topic that is very sensitive to…
This is a Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex Super, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex leaf shutter camera made by Zeiss-Ikon AG in Stuttgart, West Germany between the years 1959 and 1962. It was part of the long lived Contaflex series that saw many variations between the original Contaflex I in 1953 all the…
This is a Penti II originally made by VEB Welta-Kamera-Werk in East Germany between the years 1961 and 1977. Welta would be absorbed into VEB Pentacon in 1964 while this camera was still in production, so many were made after the merger and were then called the Pentacon Penti II. The…
This is a Voigtländer Vitessa L, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Voigtländer AG Braunschweig between the years of 1954 and 1957. This model was an update to the original Vitessa A from 1950 with the addition of an uncoupled selenium light meter and all new LVS (Light Value System) scale. The…
This is a Voigtländer Superb, a twin lens reflex camera made by Voigtländer AG Braunschweig between the years of 1933 and 1939. The Superb was Voigtländer’s first and what would end up being the company’s only true TLR camera they would ever make. It was designed to compete with the Franke &…
This is a Voigtländer Bessamatic Deluxe made by Voigtländer AG Braunschweig between the years of 1962 and 1967. It is a slightly improved model to the original Bessamatic from 1959 with the addition of a T-shaped “Judas window” above the exposure meter which allows both aperture and shutter speed settings to be…
This is a Voigtländer Prominent 35mm rangefinder camera made by Voigtländer AG Braunschweig between the years 1952 and 1958. At the time of it’s release, it was Voigtländer’s top of the line 35mm camera and was designed to compete with Ernst Leitz’s Leica series. It has an interchangeable bayonet lens mount, a coincident…
This is a Zeh Goldi, made by Paul Zeh Kamerawerk in Dresden, Germany starting in 1932. The Goldi was a compact folding camera that made 3cm x 4cm images on 127 roll film. Zeh produced the Goldi for other companies and it was sold under a variety of “white label” and…
