Retina Reflex
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The Kodak Retina Reflex is a SLR camera for interchangeable lenses made by the Kodak AG Stuttgart, Germany. It was made between 1956 and 1959. Like many SLR cameras of German heritage it works with a leaf shutter instead of a focal plane shutter. It was named Retina Reflex since it inherited several features from the viewfinder camera Kodak Retina IIIc: The film advance and exposure counting system, the film channel, the selenium meter, and the focusing mechanics of the lenses. Even the Synchro-Compur shutter is nearly similar to that of the viewfinder camera. One part of the lens optics is mounted in the camera frontside. It contains three lens elements, and around it are the setting rings for shutter speed, aperture and distance. Shutter and bayonet are the front elements of this camera sided lens part. A fast Schneider-Kreuznach Xenon 1:2/50mm lens part was available for the camera, and others, for example the Longar-Xenon 1:4/80mm.
The camera offered the convenience of image composition with wide opened aperture. The aperture is set to the selected value by pressing the shutter release button. After exposure the mirror falls back when the film advances to the next frame. The film advance is located on the camera bottom. An inconvenience for some amateurs might be the fact that not all thinkable exposure settings are makeable, only a set of shutter-speed/aperture is selectable like it became common for contemporary rangefinder cameras.
Retina Reflex S
The Retina Reflex S of 1959 could use lenses that were made for the Kodak Retina IIIS rangefinder camera. That means that it uses lenses with focusing ring so that the cameras focusing ring is omitted. Its meter is coupled to the exposure setting rings.
Retina Reflex III
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A later variant is the Kodak Retina III. It was made from 1960 to 1964. Its match-needle meter instrument scale is mirrored into the viewfinder. The camera was equipped with coupled selenium meter, since 1962 a bigger one, again made by Gossen. The aperture has to be set with a little wheel underneath the lens. As it was fashion in the early 1960s the shutter release button on top was replaced by a shutter release shifter beside the lens mount. The image below shows that the camera's redesign made a new camera case design necessary, leaving space for that shutter release a, and space for the aperture selection wheel. The Retina Reflex case was already something special before since the film advance lever was located on the bottom.
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Retina Reflex IV
The Retina Reflex IV was made from 1964 to 1967. It has a characteristic little window in the front of its pentaprism housing. That's the light source for mirroring additional informations into the viewfinder.
Links
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| Some photo amateurs know tricks to use the fine lenses of the Bessamatic |
- Retina Reflex III at Camera Collection by Sylvain Halgand
- German article in Schneider-Kreuznach archive
- Retina Reflex section at Retrography.com by Simon Simonsen, Denmark
- Retina Reflex III and IV at Westford.com [1]
- Retina Reflex at "Photography" [2]
- insight into a Retina Reflex of 1958 at "Innovative cameras" [3]
