Sirio Elettra II

The Italian industry is often frowned upon, not least in the motor car industry. The reality is far from that, as I can vouch for. In the early 1970s, I drove two FIAT cars, a 124 and a 125; neither gave me any trouble. By contrast, the mighty US car industry had proven to be a nightmare, with a Continental heading the list, closely followed by a Jimmy, Crown Vic and a Taurus, each was (very) troublesome in its own creative way. Even the pride of Germany, both a BMW 525 and the Merc GLB, had a tenancy of electrical failures. The only two models I drove that required only scheduled maintenance and wiper blade changing were a Lexus and a Mitsubishi. Further, I have personal experience with the Northern Italian machine tools industry, which is on par with the German industry, where they speak Italian but the hands are Swiss.

Back to cameras, in the post-war years, it was fashionable to produce Leica copies, some exact replicas and many more Leica-inspired models. The US made one copy, the Premier Kardon. The Brits offered the Reid. The Soviets brought copies under FED, Zorki, Geodeziya, GOI Pioneer and VOOMP; the Chinese came with the Shanghai 58. Leading the list were the Japanese camera makers, with too many models to list.

The Japanese were closely followed by Italian brands: Fiumea Ettore, Gatto, Meguro and AFIOM come to mind. The point I am trying to make is that the other manufacturers were in countries having some camera-making legacy, but the Italians jumped headlong into the market. This demonstrates the strength and resilience of Italian industry, especially as it recovered from the war years.

The well-known Italian brands are the mass-market Ferrania and Bencini, which came later and had no quality aspirations.

A good read is the pair of articles by Francesco Bastiani and Danilo Cecchi that cover the Italian photographic industry. Both articles are long and detailed and are in Italian. Google Translate does a decent job. Also, a note of thanks to mistermondo.com, a revised and improved website that has presented me with many little-known Italian camera brands. Well done, many thanks and keep up with the good work.

The camera on my desk is not a Leica knock-off, but a Leica-inspired model, where there were dozens more offered at the time.

I was curious about camera manufacturing in Florence, which is not known as an industrial hub, so I searched my database and found that, of the 59 Italian brands I have origins for, 24 were based in Milan, 10 in Rome, and three in Florence. Looking at the same data by region, 42 manufacturers were from the north and 14 from the mid regions, including the 10 in Rome.

Little is known about SIRIO. It was founded in Florence in 1945, just after the war. No information is available about the founders. SIRIO is an abbreviation for Societa Industriale Ricerche Innovazioni Ottiche, translated as “Industrial Society for Optical Research and Innovation,” a highly optimistic name for a start-up in war-torn Europe.

The company offered two models, both named Elettra. The early 1945 model was a plain, no-frills 35 mm camera that did not gain much of a following and apparently sold under 3,000 units, and has become a coveted collector’s item.  It was promptly replaced by the Elettra II of 1946, which is the subject of this page.

The Elettra II shared the basic body lines with the earlier model but added a modern-looking top cover. The production numbers vary across sources, with 3,000, 7,000, and 10,000 suggested. Production continued till 1949, when the company folded. Originally, the camera was offered at ITL 18,000, which is about USD 500 in today’s rate. As sales lagged and the company was no more, remaining inventories were offered by local distributors at ITL 10,000 (about USD 280), later discounted to ITL 5,000, about USD 140. Irony has it with a current value of about USD 300.

The camera was offered with three available lenses, Sculptor 40/5.6, Mizar 50/4.5 and a rare 50/8 Semitelar. Some lenses were outsourced, some were homemade, and there is no clear information. A late version with an accessory shoe is known to have been made but is rarely seen.

• The camera is short, with a length similar to others, making it look odd and disproportionate.
• The body is all metal, and the back and front are covered with what looks to be real leather, although I cannot tell for sure. The top is punched steel, and the bottom is aluminum.
• The top has a winder knob, skirted with a manually adjusted frame counter, a rewind release button next to it and the trigger positioned far from the edge, which could be inconvenient for smaller hands. The viewer bulge and a rewind knob are on the other side. The viewer is tiny, as were any other cameras of the era.
• The bottom is fully removable with a turnbuckle marked with two red dots; the open position is at the dot towards the middle. The mounting bushing is 3/8” BSW, so it requires an adapter to the common 1/4. The bottom is held in two weak points: the bushing is at the far end, and the camera is fairly heavy, so I suspect there have been some accidents with the bottom coming apart.
• The back is fixed, old Leica style, so loading the film from the bottom requires agile fingers and a good dose of patience.
• The serial number is marked on the inside, as ‘Matricola’ – number. My unit is marked 0104, which could be a very early model. However, the early models had a ‘T’ time, and mine has a ‘B’, so it is anyone’s guess. The other text near the serial number is the patent number.
• The front has a stubby lens assembly.
  • The shutter speed selector dial is closer to the body, offering a modest selection, B, 25-200 speeds.
  • Next is the focusing dial, with a meagre turn, about a quarter. That means that the helicoid thread is aggressive and the lens dramatically extends.
  • The frond dial is the aperture setting.

For the collector, this is a prized possession. It has a simple mechanism, so finding a live camera should be easy. Add to that the short production run, so I would recommend having it. They are not cheap but are worth the investment.