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October 27, 2023

Dacora Dignette

Dacora Dignette Established in 1946, the Dacora mainly made cheap cameras. In Europe, it sold under its name and made cameras for Porst, Ringfoto, Universa, Ferrania, Ilford, Lumier and others; in the US, it sold under its name. The company had changed hands several times, and the factory had moved to different cities until it closed in 1972. Early models...

Categories 35 mm/Dacora/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0
October 26, 2023

Franka Frankamatic

Franka Frankamatic I have two friends obsessed with vintage cars, namely American 1940. A Subaro owner teased them, saying he would keep his car for 60 years to have a collectible model. My friend said no, it isn’t classic to begin with. This classification puzzled me then, and it comes up when I try to decipher why a specific camera...

Categories 35 mm/Franka/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0
October 23, 2023

Leidolf Lordox, Optina, Lordette

Leidolf Lordox, Optina, Lordette The city of Wetzlar is the Jerusalem of the camera industry, the birthplace of the most revered name in the trade, Leica. Minox moved there from Riga, and the Leidolf company was born there, as were two other minor camera makers, Kurt Kuhmn and Oheler. The Leidolf factory was established in 1921, making lenses and associated...

Categories 35 mm/Germany/Leidolf/Viewfinder Comments: 0
October 18, 2023

Foitzik Foinix 35

Foitzik Foinix 35 The Rhineland in Germany is predominantly rural and known for its vineyards; that is where the Reisling originates. It was the most unlikely place for Karl Foitzik to move his camera plant from industrial Lubeck, seems as far as it could be. There is a parallel between this and Wohler’s plant, which was located just south of...

Categories 35 mm/Foitzik/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0
October 17, 2023

Dr Wohler Favor

Dr Wohler Favor Online research for most camera brands yields endless pages, where only a few are original; most are just advert vessels with copy-and-paste data. When this fails, there are numerous printed sources with coherent information. The data derived here is agreeable with the rest, so one can mine helpful information. That is not the case here. I am...

Categories 35 mm/Dr Wohler/Germany/Viewfinder Comments: 0
October 14, 2023

Apparate und Kamerabau Arette

Apparate und Kamerabau Arette Arette B Arette IB / Optina IB Apparate & Kamerabau, German for machinery and camera works, short as AkA, was established in Germany in 1946 by two brothers, one worked in the camera industry, and the other came from a business background. Their first venture was a shutter assembly mounted in a 35mm format camera, the...

Categories 35 mm/Apparate und Kamerabau/Rangefinder/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 0
October 12, 2023

Montanus Rocca

Montanus Rocca Four years after the lacklustre Montana, Montanus had introduced a mainstream camera model. Appearance and features conform to the standard other makers had offered. I pulled at random three other cameras off the shelf, German-made within a year or two; they all look alike as if a troop of dress-coded bridesmaids: Baldessa Franka Optina. The Rocca offered much...

Categories 35 mm/Montanus/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 0
October 10, 2023

Montanus Montana

Montanus Montana As mentioned in my thoughts on Neidig, many camera makers flourished in post-war West Germany. So was Montanus, making cameras for about a decade. Based in the Solingen district, it subscribed to a long history of precision tools makers, going back to the Middle Ages. Solingen name is primarily known for its blade industry, where it is taken...

Categories 35 mm/Montanus/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 0
October 8, 2023

Neidig Perlux

Neidig Perlux Post-war West Germany saw industries coming out of the ashes. The large conglomerates regrouped to be accepted back into the civilized world, and new high-tech grassroots industries flourished, not the least of which was the optical industry. Quite a few camera makers ventured in the 1950s, most to vanish within a decade. Others lasted a tad longer and...

Categories 35 mm/Neidig/Viewfinder/West Germany Comments: 0
October 6, 2023

Voigtlander VF 135

Voigtlander VF 135 In the mid-1960s, Voigtlander, a time-honoured brand in the industry, had felt the brunt of the up-and-coming Japanese camera industry. After making quality cameras for decades, they needed to broaden their local and export market to capture the base of the user’s pyramid. The time of the Klapp style has long gone, and the quality Vito, Vitessa...

Categories 35 mm/Compact/Rangefinder/Voigtlander/West Germany Comments: 0

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