Kodak Retina IIa 016 / 150

Retina IIa 150 user manual
Retina IIa 016 current value
Retina IIa 150 current value

At the heals of the successful early Retina camera models, being viewfinders, came an improved model, a rangefinder, under the Retina II umbrella. The first models, the Retina II 122 and 142, were sold in Europe, with no official import to the US. Both borrowed from the Retina I style, with an added two rangefinder windows to a total of two windows in the back and three in the front. The next model, the Retina IIa / 150, was still a European model but dropped the uncoupled viewer, so it looked much like an earlier Retina with an additional window at the front.

The Retina production was held for the war years for reasons no need to elaborate upon. After the war, in 1951, a new Retina IIa / 016 was made for the US market. A faster lens and lever winding are the immediately visible differences. Some refinements were added, as well as flash sync.

Needless to say that the European models are metric marked while the US models are imperial.

The lever wind model, the 016, has an additional pres button by the shutter release, which serves as a troubleshooter for anything shutter. There could be a similar button on other models, Haven’t checked and Haven’t seen any. If the lever gets stuck just press this button and hope for the best. Further, It takes pulling the lever all the way and then some to fully cock it, else it just hangs there.

Retina I models were still offered, with more Retina II variants, and some five years later, the Retina III variants, loaded with light meters, reached the market.

The question I am yet to get an answer for is why Kodak recycled model names. It seems that they had a limited pool of usable names to draw from and kept using them in cycles. I run a word cloud that proves this theory, see below. Looking at the Retina models only, there are duplications galore: II, under 011, 014, 122, 142. The IIa on this page; IIc and IIC, IIIc and IIIC; and all the models under Retina I.

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