Exa

"Exa" badge in 1957 image by Dries van den Elzen (Image rights)

Exa (1961) image by Uwe Kulick (Image rights)

Pentaprism finder unit, mountable on several Exa SLR bodies image by Uwe Kulick (Image rights)

The Exa is a 35mm SLR developed by Ihagee, and is a simple but reliable version of the Exakta. It has a simple guillotine shutter in place of the Exakta's focal plane shutter. Despite the slow maximum shutter speed this leads to, the Exa cameras were well designed for ambitious amateurs. The cameras have interchangeable waist-level and prism viewfinders and were sold with lenses by Ludwig, Meyer or Carl Zeiss. Later models have fixed viewfinders but faster shutters. Some early Exas were made by Rheinmetall, and some late ones by Certo.

Models:

• Exa (original)
• Exa Rheinmetall
• Exa I
• Exa Ia

• Exa vx100
• Exa Ib
• Exa Ic
• Exa II
• Exa IIa
• Exa IIb
• Exa 500
• Exakta 500
• VX 200

Bibliography

• Allinson, K. L. Exa Photography Technique And Practice. Morgan Publishing, 1965. ASIN B000S2ZNSY.

Links

• The Exa list by Exaklaus (in German)
• Exas on exakta.org
• Classic Exakta Cameras, by Andrzej Wrotniak, at Wrotniak.net
• EXAKTA.pl, by Pawel Fila and Jerzy Szajta
• The Exakta and Exa Pages in German
• Exa Gallery on exaktapages.com
• Exa camera and user manuals at www.collection-appareils.com by Sylvain Halgand (in French)
• Instruction manuals for EXA/Exakta at Butkus.org (OrphanCameras.com)