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german camera

Leica IIf

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Leica IIf

The Leica IIf is a high-end 35mm rangefinder debuted in 1951 by Ernst Leitz GmbH and produced in the German city of Wetzlar. This model is essentially identical to the Leica IIIf but without the capability of shutter speeds slower than 1/25 of a second. However, even the IIf model itself has several variants. This particular example has red flash sync numbers around the base of the shutter speed dial as opposed to black and a fastest shutter speed of 1/1000 as opposed to 1/500.

Wirgin Edixa Flex

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Wirgin Edixa Flex

The Wirgin Edixa Flex is a 35mm single lens reflex camera designed by Heinz Waaske (who eventually went on to create the ground-breaking Rollei 35) and introduced in 1958 by the German manufacturer Wirgin. This camera is essentially a slightly simplified clone of the already established Wirgin Edixa Reflex with fewer shutter speed options and is one of many Wirgin cameras to utilize the Edixa name.

Balda Baldessa Ia

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Balda Baldessa Ia

The Balda Baldessa Ia (or Balda Baldessa 1a) is a 35mm rangefinder camera introduced by Balda Kamera-Werk in 1958, about ten years after founder Max Baldeweg fled Socialist Dresden to reestablish his company in the soon-to-be West German city of B ünde. The Baldessa Ia and its sister model the Ib are basically identical to the original Baldessa I with the addition of a coupled rangefinder. The Baldessa Ib then went a step further by also including a built-in light meter.

Wirgin Edixa

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Wirgin Edixa

The Wirgin Edixa (also known as the Wirgin Edixa I) is a 35mm viewfinder camera introduced by Wirgin in 1953. The Edixa was originally called the Wirgin Edina but the name change was forced by Eastman Kodak because “Edina” sounds too close to “Retina,” Kodak’s high-end line of German-made folding cameras. The Edixa was also rebadged by Munich-based camera dealer Obergassner and sold as the Obergassner Oga (confusingly, there were a variety of rebadged cameras—mostly manufactured by the German firms Franka and Regula—that bore the Obergassner Oga name). The Edixa is also the first model in a wide range of Edixa-branded cameras that include TLRs, subminiatures, and SLRs.

Balda Super Baldina

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The Balda Super Baldina name has actually been used on two different cameras, one is a folding rangefinder introduced by Balda Kamera-Werk in 1938 and the other is the one pictured above: a fixed-lens rangefinder from the mid 1950s. Both incarnations of the Super Baldina have been released alongside view-finder only “normal” Baldinas.

Balda Super Baldinette

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The Balda Super Baldinette is a folding rangefinder and became Balda’s flagship camera in the early 1950s. Shortly after World War II, Balda moved from the eastern city of Dresden to B ünde in West Germany where founder Max Baldeweg opened a new factory and began manufacturing modified versions of existing models. Along with the Super Baldinette, there is also a “normal” Baldinette which has no rangefinder assembly.

Agfa Optima 500

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The Agfa Optima 500 is the second-to-last model in Agfa‘s Optima line and is the direct descendant of the very first mass-produced camera ever to feature automatic exposure: the original Agfa Optima. The Optima 500 is also unique because it was released in 1964 during the corporate merger of Belgium’s Gevaert Photo-Producten N.V. and Germany’s Agfa AG. At the time, Agfa AG was owned by pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG which eventually upped it’s 50% stake in Agfa-Gevaert N.V. to 100% and controlled the company until 1999.