Zweiformat-Auto-Ultrix

From Camera-wiki.org
Jump to: navigation, search

Ihagee Zweiformat-Auto-Ultrix was manufactured by Ihagee Kamerawerk, Steenbergen & Co., Dresden, Germany. It was in a broad range of folding cameras with the name Ultrix before WW2. All Ultrix series produced between 1922-39.

Ihagee Kamerawerk is well known due to the famous Exakta cameras.

Specifications

This data belongs to the sample in the pictures

  • Model: c.1936, Ihagee Catalog no.2860 [1] [2]
  • Produced between 1933-39
  • Folding film camera, film 120 roll, picture sizes 6x9cm and 6x4.5 cm by a mask (Zweiformat=two format)
  • Engravings on top of the camera and the leg: Ihagee [3]
  • Lens: Ihagee-Sol-Anastigmat 105mm f/4.5, Aperture: f/4.5 - f/32, no click stops
  • Focusing: manual helical focusing by a lever behind the lens-shutter barrel, guess the distance, scale on the lens standard, Focus range: 2.5-15m +inf
  • Shutter: Compur leaf shutter,
    • manufacturer logo engraved on front of the lens-shutter barrel: F.Deckel-München,
    • speeds: 1-1/250 no click stops, +T, B
    • For time exposures the shutter need not to be set, use release lever only
  • Viewfinders:
    • Waist-level brilliant finder on top of the lens, turning 90 degrees left on its own axis for landscape pictures,
    • Eye level optical sports finder, folding, on the left side of the camera, w/ a sliding mask in the back frame for adjusting 6x9 and 6x4.5 frames
  • Bellows: self erecting with the lens standard, very rigid arrangement of struts
  • Other features:
    • Back cover hinged
    • Two Red windows for 6x9 and 6x4.5 w/ built in lids
  • Body metal, ribbed plastic covering and chromed trim; Weight: 550g

History

Too many varieties of lenses and shutters were used on Ultrix series. The shutters usually from Gauthier, like the Ibsor, Vario, Pronto and Prontor. The lenses labelled Ihagee Anastigmat. But Ihagee never made any lenses of their own, they were all bought from several lens makers. It is possible that the glasses may have been mounted by Ihagee.

Ihagee folders seem to have died with the WW2 and have been forgotten, even among Exakta collectors.

Principal Ultrix models [4]

  • Ultrix (1923) standard first model
  • Ultrix-Duplex Nr.1560 (1924)
  • Ultrix-Simplex (1924)
  • Ultrix-Automat Nr.1250 (1925)
  • Auto-Ultrix 6x9cm. Nr.2860 ( 1931)
  • Auto-Ultrix mit Plattenrückwand Nr.3860 (1931)
  • Auto-Ultrix 4x6.5cm Nr.2850 (1932)
  • Zweiformat-Auto-Ultrix Nr.2860 (1933), same catalog Nr. with Auto-Ultrix 6x9cm
  • Auto-Ultrix-Junior (1935) Simple version of Zweiformat-Auto-Ultrix Nr.2860

Notes and References

  1. The known serial numbers for Zweiformat-Auto-Ultrix Nr.2860 are between 406720 - 591630
  2. Production years and serials data for estimating the manufacturing year of this camera is as to Ihagee
  3. The writing of Ihagee looks like Jhagee because it is written with an old German capital letter "I" which resembles a "J", pronounced Ihagee, and later changed with the new form of the "I" (in 1937?)
  4. McKeowns Cameras 2006, pp.435-438

Links