Ihagee
Ihagee was a German manufacturer of cameras . Ihagee was founded in Dresden in 1912 .
history
Ihagee stands for the camera factory, which was founded in 1912 as an industrial and trading company by the Dutchman Johan Steenbergen in Dresden . The achievement of the Ihagee was groundbreaking in the development of the world's first single-lens reflex camera for 35 mm format, the Kine Exakta . She is the founder of a model series that forms the basis of all today's 35mm SLR cameras . The Exakta series became so famous that an Exakta was even used by James Stewart in the classic film The Window to the Courtyard by Alfred Hitchcock to watch his neighbors.
In: From 1951 existed in Germany two companies that bore the name "Ihagee" DDR since 1951 Ihagee AG iV and since 1960 in West Berlin , the Ihagee Kamerawerk AG .
The Ihagee AG iV in the GDR was as VEB Ihagee camera work continued and gradually into the since 1968 VEB Kombinat Pentacon transferred to Dresden. First, in 1964, the development department was subordinated to Pentacon, followed by legal integration in 1968. From 1971 there were no more independent Ihagee operations. In 1985 the VEB Pentacon Dresden was incorporated into the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena combine .
Single lens reflex cameras
Ihagee mainly produced the three model series Exakta , Exa I and Exa II. A special feature of all Ihagee cameras was that the shutter button was on the left above the lens. There were continued both before and after the Second World War Exakta 6 × 6 - medium format cameras in the program.
Exactly
The Exakta was developed under the leadership of Karl Nüchterlein . In 1933 the Exakta 4 × 6.5 for roll film was presented at the Leipzig spring fair . It was already extremely compact. In 1935, the Exakta B was the first camera with built-in flash synchronization (for Osram Vacublitz flash bulbs ). The world-famous » Kine Exakta « for perforated 35 mm cinema film (the normal 35 mm format ) came onto the market in March 1936 and was the world's first series-produced single-lens reflex camera . It has a permanently installed light shaft finder, a connection for interchangeable lenses via a bayonet connection ("Exakta bayonet") and a horizontally running cloth slot lock. This camera enabled shutter speeds from 12 to 1/1000 s and offered access to an assortment of lenses in the range of 38–500 mm.
The Ihagee also offered a wide range of accessories for the Exakta. The Ihagee did not manufacture any lenses for the Exakta itself. These were obtained from Carl Zeiss Jena, Meyer-Optik Görlitz, Schneider Kreuznach and Schacht Ulm , among others . Also called “Ihagee Anast. Exaktar “lenses sold under the name Ihagee came from Meyer-Optik. The range of lenses for the Exakta bayonet has been increasingly expanded. By Carl Zeiss Jena, there were lenses from 20 mm to 400 mm, and two mirror lens lenses with 500 mm and 1000 mm. In addition to the numerous fixed focal lengths, there were also varifocal lenses for the Exakta such as the Variogon 4 / 80–240 from Schneider.
The later »Exakta« models differ only in details from the »Kine Exakta«. In 1950 the » Exakta Varex « model was given an interchangeable finder system. In 1951, the Ihagee made it possible to connect lenses with an automatic diaphragm to the camera with the “Exakta Varex VX” (or “Exakta VX”) . The Exakta IIA followed and in 1963 the Exakta IIB. The model series was rounded off by the Exakta VX 1000 introduced in 1966 and, a little later, the somewhat simpler VX 500.
After the Ihagee was integrated into the VEB Pentacon combine , some of the Praktica models were equipped with Exakta bayonets. B. launched as Exakta RL 500 or Exakta RTL 1000.
Exa
In addition to the top models of the Exakta series, Ihagee also sold the Exa I and Exa II model series . The two Exa model series are presented in detail in a separate article.
The Exa Ia and Ib also had an interchangeable viewfinder system, but only managed shutter speeds of 1/30 to 1/175 s. The Exa Ib had an M-42 lens thread and a pressure aperture lever instead of the Exakta bayonet. It was delivered with a light shaft finder, a prism viewfinder was available as an accessory, as were various viewfinder panes (magnifying glass, Fresnel lens). The Exa IIb, on the other hand, had a built-in prism viewfinder and could control exposure times from 1/2 to 1/250 s.
Exakta 6 × 6 and Exakta 66
In 1939 Ihagee first offered a medium format camera with the Exakta 6 × 6 . The shape of the case was derived from the small format Exakta. After only 1500 cameras had been produced, production was discontinued in the same year due to technical problems with film transport. In 1951, a smaller pre-series production was also discontinued.
In the following year, a completely redesigned and high-quality Exakta 6 × 6 was presented. Here, like the Rolleiflex , the housing was aligned vertically. However, it was still a single-lens reflex camera. After 2200 cameras were produced, production has now finally been stopped due to problems with film transport.
The Exakta 66 , a medium format single-lens reflex camera from Exakta GmbH in Nuremberg , was not an Ihagee camera .
Production in the GDR
Because of the high demand on the internal market of the GDR, an attempt was made to have the Exa also manufactured in similar companies in the GDR precision engineering industry. At the former company " VEB Rheinmetall Sömmerda " approx. 8000 pieces of the Exa version 4 were built under license from Ihagee, but production in Sömmerda was discontinued in 1956 due to serious deviations from the quality expectations of Ihagee Dresden.
The Ihagee failed, as the entire East German camera industry to develop their models consistently. Due to pressure from the state authorities ( planned economy ), the production of the Exakta in Dresden was finally discontinued with the Exakta RTL 1000 in 1972/73 in favor of the Praktica series from Pentacon Dresden and only the much simpler " EXA " model was continued, its production did not end until 1987.
Ihagee-West and Exakta GmbH
After years of legal disputes, the Ihagee in Dresden lost the naming rights to "Exakta" for all countries outside the socialist system to the Ihagee-West. That is why cameras for export from the GDR were called »Elbaflex«, for example.
In the west in 1963 the "Ihagee Kamerawerk AG" (Frankfurt) became the "Ihagee-Exakta Photo AG" ( Munich ). Ihagee AG (West) emerged from the West Berlin sales office . In 1967 both merged to form »Ihagee AG«, based in Berlin (West).
After the Exakta Real (Real bayonet), which was built in West Germany in 1966, had only little success, Ihagee-West switched to the sale of camera models made in Japan. The Exakta twin TL was built from 1970 to 1974 (Real bayonet, manufactured by Cosina ). From 1976 Petri cameras were manufactured for Ihagee-West under the brand name Exakta. It was the Exakta TL 500 and TL 1000 ( M42 connection ) and two years later the Exakta FE 2000, also with M42 connection.
The Ihagee AG had to announce on September 29, 1976 bankruptcy.
The brand name Exakta continued to be used by Japanese manufacturers after the bankruptcy of Ihagee-West. Therefore, after 1976, Japanese “Exakta” mirror reflex cameras appeared. For example, Topcon produced the Exakta EDX 2 and Exakta EDX 3 (Exakta bayonet with Topcon RE cover coupling) from 1977 to 1979. The Exakta KE4 from Topcon that followed in 1979 had a Pentax K bayonet . Cosina then brought out further 35 mm cameras with Exakta imprint in the years 1983–1988 as Exakta HS-1, HS, HS-2, HS-3, HS-4, HS-10 and HS-40. Here, too, the Pentax K and not the Exakta bayonet was used.
In 1982 the Nuremberg-based Miranda Foto-Video GmbH , which belonged to the sphere of influence of the photo entrepreneur Heinrich Manderman , bought the name Exakta. As a result, Mandermann founded Exakta GmbH in Nuremberg, which brought out the first of three versions of the Exakta 66 in 1984 . In terms of construction, the Exakta 66 is not based on an Ihagee camera, but on the Pentacon Six .
literature
- Werner Wurst : Exakta. 35mm photography . Leipzig 1967
Web links
- 35 mm Exakta cameras from Dresden
- Ihagee Kamerawerk - History and Products
- Exakta Cameras - Frizziero Collection
- http://www.google.de/patents?q=Ihagee various patent drawings
- http://www.photobutmore.de/exakta/ The first 35mm SLR from Dresden
Individual evidence
- ↑ History of the Kine Exakta
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.dresdner-kameras.de/ihagee_exakta/exak6x6/exakta_6x6-kameras.html
- ↑ http://www.dresdner-kameras.de/ihagee_exakta/exak6x6/exakta_6x6-kameras.html
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.baierfoto.de/forum/messages/3754.html
