Tenax I

on this camera, the tip of the advance lever is missing

The Tenax I was actually launched after the Tenax II. As the Tenax II, it was a 24x24mm square-format camera, with a rapid-advance lever around the lens. But it was a much simpler camera, with a completely different body, no rangefinder, a simple folding viewfinder on the top plate, and a behind the lens Compur shutter to 1/300. Most of them were equipped with a Zeiss Novar 3.5cm f/3.5 lens. It also existed with a Carl Zeiss Jena 3.5cm f/2.8 Tessar; in limited numbers.

The production began in 1939, and it was nearly halted in 1941. There was a limited production during the rest of the war.

After the war, the Eastern Zeiss Ikon company continued the model. At the beginning the shutter was a Compur to 1/300 or a Compur-Rapid to 1/500, then it became the East German Tempor to 1/300. The lens could be the same Zeiss Novar 35mm f/3.5, or a Carl Zeiss Jena 37.5mm f/3.5 Tessar. The body code number was 111/23 with the Novar and 111/24 with the Tessar.

The Tenax was modified in 1953 with a fixed viewfinder integrated in a higher top plate with the exposure counter inside it, and a revised advance lever. Soon after it was renamed Taxona, because the Eastern Zeiss Ikon company had lost the rights to use the traditional Zeiss Ikon names, property of the Western Zeiss Ikon company. At the same time, the Novar name became Novonar. The tip of the advance lever became black in 1954. The production ended in 1959.

Pictures of the Tenax II

Links

• The Tenax I page at the Pacific Rim photographica pages
• A web page about the Tenax I at the Frankfurt-Höchst website
• The Tenax page at Lumières en Boîte