Some of the following companies that manufacture(d) photographic material have already passed by in other parts of the site.Here you will find an overview of companies that marketed photographic material in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.More is usually known about the best known or the most influential companies than about the lesser known ones; therefore they will be discussed more extensively than others.
The emphasis in this part of the site is more on the ups and downs of the company as such, while in other chapters the emphasis was on the product or on the man or woman who founded the company. The order of all companies is alphabetical.
Below are the names of the companies as will be discussed in this or any other chapter. By clicking on a name (so not on the bullet in front of it), you go directly to that part on this page where the manufacturer in question is located. Scrolling is also possible of course, but this service helps you to get to the desired manufacturer in question much faster.
Due to the fact that this introductory page has become much longer than originally planned and desirable due to the large number of manufacturers, we strongly advise you to use the name service below to go to the manufacturer of your choice on this or any subsequent page.
- General Introduction
- ADOX
- Agfa (see also Gevaert)
- Altissa
- Amaloco
- Ansco Camera Co (see also GAF)
- APM/APeM (see also Soho)
Amalgamated Photographic Manufacturers Ltd - Argus Camera Co, Ann Arbor Michigan
- Arsenal (see Kiev-Arsenal)
- Artima Export Ltd (see also Truvox)
- Asahi Pentax
- Bencini
- BOLCo and E Elliott Ltd
(abbrev. for The British Optical Lens Company) - Carl Braun Kamera-Werk
- Canon Inc.
- J.T. Chapman, Manchester
- The Chicago Cluster of Companies
(consisting of 56 companies ) - Chinon
- Concord Camera Corp.
- K.G. Corfield & K.G. Corfield (Sales) Ltd.
- Coronet Camera Company
- Cosina Company, Ltd.
- Dacora
- Dixons
- Durst
- EHO-Altissa company (See Altissa)
- E Elliott Ltd and BOLCo
(abbrev. forThe British Optical Lens Company) - Ellison Kamra
(see also QRS Devry Kamra Company) - ELOP
- Ensign Ltd.
(distribution Company of Houghton-Butcher) - Ernemann-Kamerawerke AG
- Expo Camera Company
- The FED Company
- Ferrania
- Fisher-Price
- Fodor
- Foitzik-Kamerawerke
- C.F. Foth
- Fototecnica
- Franka Kamerawerk –
- Fujica (Camera Division of Fujifilm)
- Fujifilm (brief history)
- Futura
- GAF (see also ANSCO)
(abbrev. for General Aniline & Film) - Louis Gandolfi
- Herbert George Company
- Gevaert Photo-Producten N.V. (see also AGFA)
- Girard et Cie
- GNOME
- GOERZ
- GOMZ (LOMO)
- Graflex (Folmer & Schwing)
- Great Wall Plastics Co
- W. Haking Enterprises Ltd.
- Hanimex
- Hasselblad
- Healthways
- Houghton–Butcher Manufacturing Co (See also Ensign Ltd. and Ross-Ensign Ltd.)
- R.F. Hunter Ltd.
- ICA AG
- Ihagee (Exakta)
- Ilford
- Imperial Camera Corporation
(see the Herbert George Company story) - Jos-Pe
- Kamera-Werkstätten Guthe & Thorsch
- Keystone
- Kiev Arsenal
- KMZ
- Kochmann
- Kodak USA (incl. Australia, Canada, France, Germany & the UK)
- Konica-Minolta (Konishiroku)
(see also Minolta) - Kowa
- Krügener
- Kürbi & Niggeloh (Bilora)
- Kyocera (Yashica, Contax)
- Lancaster
- Leitz
- Lensless Camera Manufacturing Company
- Linhof
- Lipca (see also Richter-Tharandt)
- LOMO (see GOMZ)
- Loreo
- Mamiya
- Meopta Optotechnica
- Mimosa AG
- Minolta (see also Konica-Minolta)
- Minox Company
- Miranda (Orion)
- MMZ-BeLomo
- Motodori (Condor)
- Dr. August Nagel Kamera Werke
- Neidig Kamerawerk
- Nemrod-Metzeler (See Healthways)
- Nettel
- Nikon Company
- Nimslo Corporation (see also Nishika)
- Nishika Optical Systems (see also Nimslo)
- Noblex (See also K-W Guthe & Thorsch)
- Olympus Company
- ORION (see Miranda)
- ORWO
- Ottico Meccanica Italiana (OMI)
- Paterson Products Ltd.
- VEB Pentacon Dresden
- Pentax (See Asahi Pentax)
- Petri
- Photavit (Bolta)
- Plaubel
- Polaroid
- Photo Porst
- Karl Pouva – VEB Fototechnik Freital (see also Woldemar Beier)
- Purma Cameras Ltd.
- QRS Devry Kamra Company (see also Ellison Kamra)
- Foto-Quelle
- Rectaflex
- VEB Rheinmetall Büromaschinenwerk
- Richter-Tharandt (see also Lipca)
- Ricoh
- Rollei Germany
- Rollei Singapore
- Ross-Ensign
(continuation from Ensign Ltd.) - Ro-To Company
- Sea&Sea-Sunpak
- Shanghai Seagull
- Sida-Fotofex
- Sigma
- Soho Ltd (see also APM)
- Standard Cameras
- Steinheil
- Stenopeika
- Thornton-Pickard
- Topcon (Tōkyō Kōgaku)
- Tougodo Company
- Traid Corporation
- TRUVOX (see also Artima Export)
- Tura AG
- Universal Camera Corp.
- Vivitar
- Voigtländer
- Vredeborch
- Welta
- Werra (C. Zeiss Jena)
- Wirgin
- Kamera-Fabrik Woldemar Beier (see also Karl Pouva)
- Hermann Wolf GmbH
- Wünsche
- Yashica (see also Kyocera)
- Zeiss Ikon AG
- Zion
- Zunow (Teikoku Kōgaku)
2002: Taken over by Dr. Tony Chak-Leung Tai & Dr. Tai-Chin Lo
COMPANY NAME:
W. Haking Enterprises Ltd.
COMPANY ADDRESS:
1956: Hong Kong; 2002: Xinhui (Guangdong) in southern China
Before China became the longest workbench of the world, Hong Kong became the manufacturing hub for numerous suppliers looking for a cheaper location. W. Haking Enterprises grew here during the boom time of simple analog cameras to the largest manufacturer in the world with over 100 million cameras produced.
Fan Ho, nicknamed “the great master,” earned his fame as one Asia’s most beloved street photographers capturing Hong Kong in the 1950s and ’60s. What made his work so intensely human is his love for the common Hong Kong people; coolies, vendors, hawkers selling fruits and vegetables, kids playing in the street or doing their homework, people crossing the street.
Dr Haking Wong of W. Haking Enterprises Ltd. was a renowned electronics engineer dedicated to industrial development in Hong Kong. The late entrepreneur donated generously to engineering research, and the University named the Haking Wong Building in recognition of his generosity. The building was opened on 6 October, 1983 by Sir Edward Youde, the then Governor and Chancellor of HKU. Mr Wong was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1968 and he was appointed a member of the University Court in December 1978.
In the mid-1950s, Haking Wong no longer saw any long-term prospects for his Hong Kong-based manufacture of simple fabric shoes and the mass production of plastic toothbrushes and was looking for another mainstay for his company. Together with Pauline Chan, who had completed her studies of fine arts before the Second World War, he founded W. Haking Enterprises Ltd. in 1956 in what was then the British Crown Colony in Hong Kong.
They combined combined their names to form the brand name Halina. Several of these cameras can be seen in the Hong Kong Museum of History.
In the slipstream of the Japanese camera industry and boosted by the United States’ embargo of China, the company developed into one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cameras and binoculars with mostly simple cameras, some of which were still made of metal in the early years.
While the company name comes from the personal name Haking, early cameras were named after the co-founder Paulette. With the cameras, which were produced at a very low cost after the conversion to plastic injection moulding, numerous other brands have been supplied with products from Haking over the years.
Haking gained ownership of the former US brand Ansco, and has also produced many “private label” cameras which appear under other brands. Halina and Ansco camera products are distributed today in the UK, Ireland, the Middle East and Africa by a company named Halina Imaging, which belongs to the British photographic distribution company SPS Logistics. Older cameras from Haking may be marked as “Empire made”
Pauline Chan’s sales talent ensured that the company flourished for a long time. Both Dr. Haking Wong as well as his business partner Dr. Pauline Chan spent larger sums for university institutions in Hong Kong. Mr. Wong died in the year before Hong Kong was returned to China, and Ms. Chang was active in the company until about 2000 and still lives in Hong Kong today – over 90 years old.
Haking (Tung Shing) Industrial Building in Hong Kong.
With the rapid opening of China as a manufacturing location and the advent of digital cameras, the Haking company was faced with two challenges that, overall, were hardly manageable for the company.
After the energetic saleswoman Pauline Chan withdrew from the company, there were hardly any signs of life from the Haking Industrial building. That changed when the company was taken over by Dr. Tony Chak-Leung Tai & Dr. Tai-Chin Lo and came under new leadership.
Production moved from Hong Kong to a new factory located in Xinhui (Guangdong) in southern China, where three quarters of the world’s camera production is now located. After producing in the immediate vicinity of the administration in the past, the new production site is located about 100 km west of the company headquarters, which has remained in Hong Kong.
Haking Enterprises Ltd. presented itself at Photokina 2008 with a small, rather inconspicuous stand between frame and photo album provider and far away from the big names in the photo industry from Hong Kong with analogue and digital cameras.
With over 100 million cameras produced, Haking Enterprises was once the number-one giant among camera manufacturers. The products from Hong Kong came onto the market both under the own brands Haking, Halina and the former GAF brand Ansco. In addition, Haking produced as an OEM manufacturer for numerous other, mainly retail brands.
In addition to the 35 mm cameras which are still in the production program, APS models and increasingly digital compact cameras and binoculars are also being manufactured. The range of binoculars today includes models made conventionally from metal as well as lightweights made from glass fiber reinforced plastic and special versions for use on water. According to its own statements, Haking currently has a production capacity of 700,000 cameras and 180,000 binoculars per month.
The financial crisis in 2008, however, has reshaped markets for the company. Today it does about 60 per cent of its products still sold under the Halina and Ansco names in Europe and the United Kingdom, while the share for the United States has shrunk to 30 per cent and Japan accounts for around 10 per cent.
Another typical Fan-Ho shot of life in 1950s Hong Kong
The company provided a.o. following cameras:
- Haking L80
- Haking HG1 (Cosina)
- Haking HG2 (Cosina)
- Haking Autoflash 35 / Topcon 135 EE / Revue 350 F
- Halina 2000
- Halina 35X / Micronta 35X / Sunscope 35X
- Halina Super 35X
- Halina 300
- Halina 3000
- Halina 35-600
- Halina 500 / Cortina 500 (zone focus)
- Halina Autoflash 35
- Halina Flash 350
- Halina MW 35E (zone focus)
- Halina MW35S / Haking MW35S
- Halina Paulette
- Halina Paulette II
- Halina Paulette Electric
- Halina Paulette EE II
- Halina Pet
- Halina Rolls
- Ansco 1065 (35mm w/fixed focus 48mm f:8 lens)
- Haking AF 35 D
- Haking CFLII
- Haking Compact Flash
- Haking Compact Flash G
- Haking H400
- Haking Junior G
- Haking Mini AF
- Haking Uno-A
- Halina 35/Ansco 35
- Halina 35X mark II
- Halina 150 (has hot-shoe; available in bright red)
- Halina 160
- Halina 260 (has built-in flash; available in bright red)
- Halina 1000
- Halina 1600
- Halina 1610 Motor (34mm f/4.5 fixed focus; integrated flash; available in bright blue)
- Halina 1950TL (has two built-in switchable lenses)
- Halina AF800
- Halina AF810
- Halina AF Sensor
- Halina/Ansco Easy Vision series (Motor S, Mini S)
- Halina F700
- Halina Flash 300 (aka Haking Flash-Lite G)
- Halina Flash 350
- Halina Micro 35 ( Haking Compact-SC / Ansco 2000 Micro 35 / Miranda 35ME / Revue 35FC)
- Halina Micro E
- Halina MW35 AF
- Halina MW35 G (fixed focus 38mm)
- Halina Panorama
- Halina Panorama-F
- Halina Pix 35F
- Halina Prestige 280S (fixed focus 28mm)
- Halina Prestige 280AS (auto-focus 28mm)
- Halina/Ansco Silhouette Zoom
- Halina Silhouette 28 DF
- Halina Speedy 33
- Ansco Tegra
- Halina Tegra Zoom 200
- Halina Vision series (I, II, III, 20-20, C XAS, MAF, Snapz, XAS, XF Easy Load, XM, C XMS, Smart, Smart S, Mini 28 DF, Mini MZ, Ultra Compact)
- Halina/Ansco Vision Compact 35 / Vision 3 DX
- Halina 100X
- Halina Signal Flash / GAF 136 XF
- Halina 300
- Halina Simplette series
- Halina Simplette Electric
- Halina Simplette EE Automatic
- Halina Speedoflash
- Halina Easi Load
Note: parallel models also exist under Ansco branding
- Haking Disc 06
- Haking Disc 18s
- Halina Disc 100 (Haking Disc 01-H)
- Halina Disc 102 (Zippy-F)
- Halina Disc 108 (Haking Disc 11)
- Halina Disc 118
- Halina Disc 208
- Halina Disc 328
- Halina Disc 408
- Haking 220 EF
- Haking Flash VB/2
- CTC 110 pocket / Haking Grip-C / Halina 110 Auto-Flip
- Haking Micro 110 / Halina Micro 110
- Halina 110 Flashmatic
- Halina 202
- Halina Flashmatic 110 Tele
- Halina MF 200
- Halina Micromatic
- Halina Minimatic 101
- Halina Minimatic 110
- Halina Pix 110F
- Halina Pix 110T
- Halina Powerdrive 90F / Halina Powerdrive 90T
- Halina STB Flashmatic 110 Tele
- Halina Super-Mini
- Halina Super-Mini 88
- Halina Super-Mini 5000
- Halina Super-Mini Flash
- Halina Tele Flash
- Halina Telemaster Flash
- Halina Telewide / Revue Pocket FTM
- Halina Vision 110 Mini-Motor
- Haking ZM82AE / Halina ZM80AE-V2 / Agfa Futura Af zoom
- Halina APSilon M10-E
- Halina APSilon 30
- Halina APSilon 30AF
- Halina APSilon 250 AF
- Halina Baby / Empire Bab
- Halina Roy
The Haco-44, name variant of the Toyoca-44 made by Tougodo, is sometimes attributed to Haking by mistake.
- Halina A1
- Haking Mirroflex II
- Halina Prefect / Halina Prefect Senior / Kinoflex / Sunscope / Votar Flex / Wales Reflex
- Halina Viceroy / Kinoflex De Luxe / Star-Lite Super Reflex
- Halina 6-4
- Empire Scout
- Halina digital camera
- Halina DVC 300 Digi Pix
- Halina DVC 500 Digi Pix
movie cameras
- Halina Super 8 Empire
- Halina Super Eight
- Halina Super 8 EE
- Halina Super 8 EE Zoom
- Halina Super 8 Compact
- Halina Super 8 Compact EE
- Halina PS 200 RD
- Halina PS 300 RD
- Halina PS 400 RD
- Haking 1000 S
- Haking 2000 S
The Prefect was a Pseudo TLR-format roll film box camera produced from around 1957. Takes 12 frames on 120 film. Haking’s Double Meniscus f.8 lens, with f/8, f/11 and f/16 stops. B & I shutter settings, with flash synch. The Prefect cover was labelled “Empire Made” (at the time, a euphemism for Hong Kong – British territory until handed back to the P.R.C. in 1997.
Virtually the same camera was sold as the Wales Reflex, but with the addition of an accessory shoe on the side – and the slogan “A CAMERA for GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY” on the box. A similar camera, with the same body and lens but different shutter and aperture controls, was the Halina Viceroy, of 1960.
The Halina Paulette was a 35mm viewfinder camera made in Hong Kong by Haking. It was introduced in c.1965, with a 45mm/f2.8 lens in a 4-speed (1/30-1/250) + B shutter.
Many Haking cameras were sold under other names; the Paulette was sold by Sears as the Model 65.
The Halina Paulette Electric is the same camera with an added light meter. The Halina Paulette II is a later, 1973 version, similar to the Halina 2000.
This compact Halina 150 camera with grey fabric case and carrying strap is from circa 1980s. It is made from red and black injection moulded polystyrene and has a dial on the back for winding on the film manually. The 33mm lens has a slide across cover and the camera has weather condition settings.
The instruction leaflet says best results can be obtained with film speeds of ISO 200, but 100 or 400 should be acceptable. It was available in bright red, black, or white. Surprisingly it’s not made in Hong Kong, it’s made in Macau.
The Halina Roy is a simple box camera for 127 film manufactured by Haking in Hong Kong. The lens is fixed focus and what is apparently a selenium meter cell beside the viewfinder is simply a dummy. On top of the camera you can place a flash cube that is powered by two 1.5 volt batteries.
The same camera was available under other names, such as Halina Roy, Imperial Cubex IV, Sears 127 and Phokina 127c, depending on the country of manufacture and sale.
The Halina 160 is a 35mm compact camera very similar to the Halina 150 and it is near identical to the Halina 260 in appearance and function. It has a built-in flash which requires two AAA batteries. It has a single speed shutter of around 1/125s with three aperture settings marked by ISO speeds, which are 100/200, 400 and 1000. It was available in several different colours.
There are several rebrands of the 160 or 260 including the Haking Quick, Haking CF35 and Miranda FG-Z with identical or only minor restyling on body. A similar version was made for Foto-Quelle as the Revue 150CF but with different ISO settings
The Halina Simplette EE Automatic is an autoexposure model for 126 film cartridges. It is part of the Simplette range which includes several other models. The Halina Simplette EE Automatic has a striking appearance due to the trapezoidal selenium meter cell above the lens, somewhat reminiscent of the Argus 260 Automatic.
The camera uses scale focusing and has a socket for flashcubes. It’s simple to use, just focus using the three symbols. These are doubled by the indication of the distance in meters and feet.Its date is unclear although circa 1965 is likely—after flashcubes arrived but before CdS meter cells had completely displaced selenium.
FOUNDER: Jack Dieter Hannes
COMPANY NAMES:
Hanimex Corporation, later Hanimex Pty Ltd
Hanimex is an abbreviation for Hannes Import Export.
COMPANY ADRESS:
Hanimex Pty Ltd, 114 Old Pittwater Road, Brookvale NSW
Hanimex Corporation was an importer and distributor of cameras, lenses, and other photographic equipment in Australia and New Zealand. The company also distributed consumer electronics and other non-photographic gear.
The director of Hanimex Corporation Ltd. Mr. J.D. Hannes (left) presents a gold-plated slide projector to the Premier, Mr. Askin, yesterday November 30, 1965, after he had opened extensions to the company’s plant at Brookvale. The projector was the 500,000 manufactured by the company. Extensions to the Hanimex plant cost more than AU$150,000.
One of the first cameras that Hanimex manufactured in-house: the Argus 75, which proudly bore the label: “Made in Australia”.
Jack Dieter Hannes was born in the year 1923 on April 12 in Berlin. From 1934 he attended Buxton College in Derbyshire England until 1939 when he and his family fled Germany and travelled to Australia arriving there at the age of 16.
He enrolled at Sydney University where he studied mechanical and electrical engineering graduating with degrees in both. He worked for a couple of years for STC (Standard Telephone Company). He went back to University and studied economics while lecturing in physics.
Jack developed an interest in photography and researched the various European companies who were starting to get their act together after the war and soon started an importing arrangement with an Italian Company. He imported sunglasses, Duca cameras and Durst enlargers, the Duca being the first 35mm camera imported to Australia after the war. It used the Agfa Karat film system.
Seeing the potential and also liking the industry, Jack incorporated a company and with a staff of three set up business above a news agency in Sydney. He called it Hanimex, (HANnes IMport and Export). In the first year and at his age of only 24 the turnover of the company was £25,000.
Jack was having trouble getting people to sell his product because there were very few retailers and Kodak had tied most of them up forbidding other brands to be stocked in their shops.
Needing more capital he persuaded a friend, John Howie, to invest £20,000 in the company and become a partner in the business. In 1952 he took a trip to Europe and secured the agencies for Finetta, Iloca, and Futura in Germany and Praktica from East Germany. He also opened his first overseas branch in New Zealand. He next started to import the consumables, flash globes from Wotan and projector globes from Osram.
In 1954 he went to Japan, one of the first Australians in the photographic industry to do so and secured dozens of agencies including Nikon. In 1956 after the government introduced import restrictions, it limited the stock he was able to get and one of the answers was to build Argus projectors under license. Jack travelled to Ann Arbor in the USA the headquarters of Argus to get a deal to assemble Argus projectors in Australia. He came away with the Argus Agency for Australasia and the dies for making the Argus 75 camera.
This was duly produced and proudly bore the label ‘Made in Australia’. All this was done on the shake of a hand, a sign of the man and a sign of the times. In 1957 the company Hanimex Corporation was listed on the Sydney and Melbourne stock exchanges. In 1958 he convinced Boots Chemists in England to buy 10,000 projectors and in 1960 Dixons placed an order and within 3 years had sold 40,000 units.
One of the important agencies that Jack brought back to Australia in 1954 was that of Fujifilm and this turned out one the most enduring and profitable of his many deals. He received many awards in his lifetime, the Queen’s medal for services to Australian industry and membership of the Japanese Photo Industry Association, the only non-Japanese to do so.
Throughout all this rapid expansion, Hannes was a tireless worker who kept in close contact with industry trends and consumer needs. He also developed close relationships with his industry colleagues around the world and earned considerable respect from his staff. He was a keen member of his own design team and his energy and enthusiasm were an inspiration to all the company.
Even with all this activity he was able to devote considerable time to the industry as a whole. In the 1950s he was instrumental in mounting the first consumer exhibition of photographic equipment in Australia and in the 1970s he was active in bringing wholesalers and retailers together for the first time in the first of two South Pacific photographic conventions.
Headquarters of the South Pacific Commission in the seventies.
Jack resigned from the company in 1982 having managed it for 35 years and growing it at a cumulative rate of 20% per year. Jack resigned because the main shareholder at the time, Burns Philp and Co. stacked the board against him and he was unable to run the company as he wished.
After Hanimex he broadened his range of activities and held positions in many organisations. He was a director of the Chamber of Commerce and held directorships with various other companies.
Many start-up companies and their executives benefited from his advice. He was a foundation fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and an active director of Merino Pty Ltd, a manufacturer of paper and plastics products jointly founded by his father. Other business interests ranged from property development to luxury boat imports.
He had a wide-ranging interest in politics and economics and would vigorously debate any subject. Because of his Jewish heritage his views were strongly influenced by his experiences in Germany before World War II. He believed the power of a demagogue to stir up nationalistic, xenophobic or racist attitudes should never be underestimated, and he disliked nationalistic or jingoistic attitudes in politics.
Hannes made an outstanding contribution to the business of photography in Australia and around the world. He was the recipient of the highest awards the world industry had to offer, including the Queen’s Medal for services to Australian industry and a lifetime achievement award from the Japanese Photo Industry Association, being one of the few non-Japanese recipients. He was a man of extraordinary energy and vision and led a vigorous life. Hannes had a natural ear for music and played a number of instruments. He was patron of Opera Australia and a lover of the arts.
Aerial view of the Sydney Opera House. This is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world’s most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture.
Along with his family he maintained his passion for holiday travel. It was on his most recent trip, which included skiing, tennis, hiking, diving and water skiing in six countries, that he died of a heart attack in a restaurant in Zurich on January 31st 2005 surrounded by his family.
Hanimex Cameras
Since the list of cameras counts no less than 121 types, we will already start here by showing a number of examples from this extensive range. The total list of camera types is listed at the end of the chapter.
Hanimex Hanimette (±1962)
Hanimex Eaglet (±1952)
Hanimex 110 DF Tele (±1984)
Hanimex 2000 Pocket Loadmatic (±1975)
Hanimex C35 (±1959)
Hanimex Amphibian (±1983)
Hanimex Praktica Nova LB (±1975)
Hanimex Snapshot 10 (±1980)
Hanimex Standard 120 Box made by Vredeborch (±1954)
Hanimex Disc 420 (±1985)
Headquarters of Hanimex Pty Ltd. at 114 Old Pittwater Road, Brookvale NSW, was later taken over by Avon and then by Fuji.
In the late 1960s, Hanimex started optical manufacturing in Hong Kong.
On April 17 2020, FUJIFILM Australia moved its headquarters from Old Pittwater Road in Brookvale to Suite 2, Levels 1 and 2 of 54 Waterloo Road in Macquarie Park, NSW 2113. The company’s camera repair and optical device service centre remained at its existing Brookvale location and all service booking procedures remain the same too.
Hanimex cameras were often sold under the Hanimex brand name or co-branded with the Hanimex brand and the Manufacturers brand (e.g. Hanimex Topcon). Photographic product distributed by the company were made by Tōkyō Kōgaku, Sedic and Royal in Japan, by Finetta, Montanus, Vredeborch and Dacora in West Germany, by Pentacon in East Germany, and by other manufacturers.
Hanimex distributed SLR-lenses for several different lens mounts under the Hanimex brand name. Since 1954, Hanimex was also the sole distributor of Fuji Film products in New Zealand.
Hanimex sold camera flashes, film cameras (e.g. Hanimex Loadmatic MP300 Super8 camera, Hanimex U8 Zoom Super8 camera), slide projectors (e.g. Hanimex Arus 500) and film projectors (e.g. the Hanimex Dual-matic IQ 1000S Super8 film projector) and dark room equipment.
During the 1960s Hanimex established its own organisations around the world and began to set up offices and factories in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, the US, Hong Kong and Japan. The company received two export awards and was listed on the London stock exchange.
By the mid-1960s Hanimex had its own design department and had achieved 24 patents. Though mostly relating to projectors, one related to a 110 camera. This camera had push pull advance and cocking system like the Minox. A later model also incorporated electronic flash with a telelens and wide-angle lens built in. Jerry Arnott was the designer and he was also responsible for the Reflex 35. This was a fixed lens 35mm reflex with built in flash and was also another first.
Hanimex began optical manufacturing in Hong Kong and slide projector manufacture in Ireland and the US. By the beginning of the 1970s it was the second largest manufacturer of slide projectors in the world.
The company also developed large-scale photofinishing activities and opened laboratories in Australia and New Zealand. By 1978 the company had more than 2000 employees and Hanimex projectors, slide viewers, electronic flashguns, camera lenses and hosts of other accessories were being sold in more than 70 countries.
The huge success of Hanimex attracted considerable interest from the stock market and the company was the constant target for takeover bids. With Hannes’s work commitments in so many countries it is small wonder that eventually there was a substantial change in share ownership.
In 1982 Hannes resigned from the company. In the 35 years of his management, Hanimex grew at an average annual cumulative rate of 20 per cent. He developed it from a small Australian distributor to a brand name recognised throughout the world.
At some point in the late 70s, Hanimex Corporation became a subsidiary of Australian real estate developer, Chase Group. The subsidiary became known as Hanimex Group.
In the 1980s, Hanimex acquired a number of smaller companies including Foto Island and Palcolor. In 1985, Hanimex acquired the American company Vivitar, which was losing money, and in a year Hanimex made the company profitable again.
Due to a decline in the Australian real-estate market, Chase Group decided to sell Hanimex Group. In 1989 Hanimex was acquired by the Gestetner Corporation. Ricoh Co., Ltd. acquired Gestetner Corporation in 1996. Gestetner then changed its name to NRG Overseas Investment Ltd.
On 22 April, 2004 Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd acquired Hanimex Australasia Pty Ltd., the holding company of Hanimex Group, from NRG Overseas Investment Ltd, a group company of Ricoh Co., Ltd. Fuji discontinued use of the Hanimex name at that time but still owns the rights.
The company provided a.o. following cameras:
- AK8 (c.1955)a rebadged Pentacon AK8
- Eaglet (c.1952)
- Electra II (c.1962) a rebadged Dacora-Matic 4D
- Hanimar (c.1953) a rebadged Finetta 88
- Hanimette (c.1966) a rebadged Beirette
- Hanimex 100 LF Tele
- Hanimex 101 Rapid (c.1966) a rebadged Dacora D 101 Rapid
- Hanimex 101F Rapid
- Hanimex 108F
- Hanimex 110 DFTele
- Hanimex 110 EF
- Hanimex 110F Auto-Grip
- Hanimex 110FL Tele
- Hanimex 110IF
- Hanimex 110KF
- Hanimex 110 LF
- Hanimex 110 LF Tele
- Hanimex 110 MF Amphibian
- Hanimex 110 TF Motor (c.1968)
- Hanimex PF 428 (110)
- Hanimex 2000 Pocket Loadmatic
- Hanimex 202 Rapid
- Hanimex Amphibian (Underwater diving camera)
- Hanimex 303 Rapid a rebranded Dacora D303
- Hanimex 35 AFX
- Hanimex 35 AL
- Hanimex 35 Auto-EE
- Hanimex 35 Auto-EE CDS Taron Auto EE
- Hanimex 35 C1s
- Hanimex 35 DL same as Miranda TL 200
- Hanimex 35 Dual Lens
- Hanimex 35EE Chinon CE Memotron
- Hanimex 35ee Micro
- Hanimex 35 EFP
- Hanimex 35 EM
- Hanimex 35 ES
- Hanimex 35 ESM
- Hanimex 35 F
- Hanimex 35 FE
- Hanimex 35 FM
- Hanimex 35 FX
- Hanimex 35 HF Motor
- Hanimex 35HL
- Hanimex 35 HS
- Hanimex 35 RAS
- Hanimex 35 HSC
- Hanimex 35 IF
- Hanimex 35 IF Sport
- Hanimex 35 KAF
- Hanimex 35 KAS
- Hanimex 35 KF
- Hanimex 35 MAF
- Hanimex 35 MB-3s
- Hanimex 35MD
- Hanimex 35 ME
- Hanimex 35 Micro Flash
- Hanimex 35 MF
- Hanimex 35 RAF
- Hanimex 35 RAS
- Hanimex 35 Reflex Flash (1979) same as Fujica ST-F
- Hanimex 35 RL-1
- Hanimex 35 S
- Hanimex 35 SE
- Hanimex 35 SL
- Hanimex35 WF
- Hanimex Electronic 3if
- Hanimex 404 Rapid
- Hanimex A35 (c.1958) a rebadged Samoca 35 M-28
- Hanimex Big Eye Motor
- Hanimex Compact A a rebadged Halina 35-600
- Hanimex Compact R-Ricoh 500G
- Hanimex Date
- Hanimex C-35 (c.1959) a rebadged Royal 35P
- Hanimex CR-1000 (SLR) a rebadged Petri MF-1?
- Hanimex D-35 (c.1959) a rebadged Royal 35P
- Hanimex DR-1 (SLR) a rebadged Cosina CT-1A
- Hanimex DR-1 Super (SLR) a rebadged Cosina CT1 Super
- Hanimex Duomatic
- Hanimex FC5s
- Hanimex Genie Motor
- Hanimex Handy
- Hanimex IC500
- Hanimex IC2000
- Hanimex IC3000
- Hanimex IEF
- Hanimex Loadmatic XL
- Hanimex Mini
- Hanimex Mini 218
- Hanimex Mini AF
- Hanimex Panorama 35
- Hanimex Pix
- Hanimex Pocket 100
- Hanimex Pocket 200
- Hanimex Praktica 66 same as the Pentacon Six
- Hanimex Praktica LB (c.1975) same as the Praktica LB
- Hanimex Praktica LTL (c.1975) same as the Praktica LTL
- Hanimex Praktica Mat (c.1967) same as Praktica Mat
- Hanimex Praktica Nova I & IB See Praktica Nova
- Hanimex Praktica Super TL (c.1969) See Praktica Super TL
- Hanimex RF-35
- Hanimex RF-35d
- Hanimex Snap Shooter 115 1980’s Disc film camera
- Hanimex SnapShot
- Hanimex SnapShot 10
- Hanimex SnapShot Brite
- Hanimex SnapShot Metallic
- Hanimex Standard 120 Box (c.1954) by Vredeborch
- Hanimex Tele 110 TF
- Hanimex Tele-Hanomatic PF628
- Hanimex Topcon RE Auto 1964 by Tokyo Kogaku
- Hanimex V35
- Hanimex VC3500
- Hanimex VIF 110
- Hanimex Vision I
- Hanimex Vision III
- Hanimex VXL
- Holiday (c.1958) a rebadged Walz 35
- Holiday 35 (c.1958) a rebadged Royal 35P
- Holiday 35 (c.1972)
- Holiday II
- Werra IB (c.1954) a rebadged Werra
CO-FOUNDER, Victor Hasselblad, great-grandson of the founder, took over F.W. Hasselblad & Co. and Hasselblad Fotografiska AB, becoming the owner and CEO in 1943.
1841: F. W. Hasselblad and Co.; 1908: the photographic division of the company started Fotografiska AB; 1966: Kodak buys Fotografiska AB; 1976: Säfveån AB buys Hasselblad AB;
After 1976, Hasselblad changed hands many times; namely: 1984: Incentive AB bought 58.1% of Hasselblad, and in 1991, they acquired the remainder of the shares; 1996, Hasselblad was sold to UBS, Cinven; 2003, the Shriro Group acquired a majority shareholding; 2011: A German private equity firm Ventizz acquired a 100% stake; 2015: Chinese manufacturer DJI acquired a minority interest and in 2017: DJI acquired the majority stake.
Götaplatsen 6, 412 56 Göteborg, Sweden.
Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners. Perhaps the most famous use of the Hasselblad camera was during the Apollo program missions when the first humans landed on the Moon. Almost all of the still photographs taken during these missions used modified Hasselblad cameras. Hasselblad produces about 10,000 cameras a year from a small three-storey building.
In 1943, Victor took over F.W. Hasselblad & Co, becoming the owner and CEO. This deal also included the company Hasselblad Fotografiska AB.
From a young age, Victor had a passion for bird watching, adventuring around in search of rare birds and capturing them on film.
The Hasselblad tale starts in 1841, sixty-five years before Victor Hasselblad was born. Victor’s great-grandfather, Fritz Victor Hasselblad, founded the trading company F.W. Hasselblad & Co in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company began importing supplies such as sewing materials and machines, travel accessories, household articles, and the like.
In 1877, Arvid Hasselblad commissioned the construction of Hasselblad’s long-time headquarters building, in use until 2002.
In 1885, Fritz Viktor’s son, Arvid Viktor, met George Eastman, founder of Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company (later to become Kodak in 1888), while on his honeymoon in London.
With a deal sealed by a handshake, F.W. Hasselblad & Co became the sole Swedish distributor for Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company photography products. The business was so successful that the photographic operations were spun off into their own corporation, Fotografiska AB, in order to meet the demand of photographic products.
Hasselblad’s corporate website quotes him as saying, “I certainly don’t think that we will earn much money on this, but at least it will allow us to take pictures for free.” Operations included a nationwide network of shops and photo labs.
In 1906, Arvid Viktor’s grandson, Victor Hasselblad, son of Karl Erik Hasselblad, was born as the natural heir to the Hasselblad family photo business. Karl Erik wanted his son, Victor to have a wide understanding of the camera business, so at 18 years old, Victor was pulled out of school and sent to Dresden, Germany to learn about the camera industry and optics manufacturing.
Young Victor roamed the globe, spending this period of his life as an apprentice in the camera industry. First in Germany and France, then in the United States, he worked in camera and film factories, developing labs, and camera shops.
The Hasselblad family’s connections gave young Victor unique access to his family’s business partner, George Eastman. Eastman, one of the world’s most visionary and successful entrepreneurs and founder of the Kodak Company, perfected roll film and was one of the most important figures in the world of photography. In 1926, the businessman took Victor on as his protégé at Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, New York.
Back in Sweden again, in 1937, due to disputes within the family, particularly with his father, Victor left the business and opened his own photo shop, aptly named Victor Foto, in central Gothenburg. The shop was complete with a photo lab and was his first business step independent from his family.
In 1935, Victor Hasselblad published a book called Flyttfågelstråk (Migratory Bird Passage). It contained various photos of birds in flight, a rarity at the time.
In April 1940, Victor Hasselblad established a camera workshop in Gothenburg called Ross AB in a shed at an automobile shop, working in the evenings in cooperation with a mechanic from the shop and his brother, and began designing the HK7 camera. The HK-7 would become Victor’s first camera under the company’s original name, Ross AB in 1941.
The Swedish government realised the strategic advantage of developing an aerial camera for their own use, and approached Victor with the task of replicating a recovered fully functioning German aerial surveillance camera from a downed German plane to aid the Swedish Air Force. This was probably a Handkammer HK 12.5 cm/7×9 camera.
By late 1941, the company had over 20 employees and the Swedish Air Force asked for another camera, one which would have a larger negative and could be permanently mounted to an aircraft. This model was the SKa4. Between 1941 and 1945, Hasselblad delivered 342 cameras to the Swedish military.
In 1942, Karl Erik Hasselblad died and Victor took control of the family business. During the war, in addition to the military cameras, Hasselblad produced watch parts and clock parts, over 95,000 by the war’s end. In 1943, Victor took over F.W. Hasselblad & Co, becoming the owner and CEO. This deal also included the company Hasselblad Fotografiska AB.
The Swedish Air Force was extremely pleased with both the HK-7 camera and its successor, the SKa4 camera, which had several unique features that would prove important for Hasselblad´s post-war production, including interchangeable film magazines. On the foto are CaptainTorvald Andersson and aerialphotographer Åke Wintzell with camera Ross HK 7 in hand, 1940s.
Between 1941-1945, Hasselblad produced a total of 342 different cameras in collaboration with the Swedish military. After the war, watch and clock production continued, and other machine work was also carried out, including producing a slide projector and supplying parts for Saab automobiles. But Hasselblad always viewed their partnership as the first step towards the development of a high-quality civilian camera, something portable that could fit in the hand.
In 1945–1946, the first design drawings and wooden models were made for a camera to be called the Rossex. An internal design competition was held for elements of the camera; one of the winners was Sixten Sason, the designer of the original Saab bodywork.
The first successful commercial camera for Hasselblad was the Hasselblad Universal camera, which was made by Szilárd Szabad. This camera was produced in over 1500+ units over a span of a few years, and quickly became the preferred all-around workhorse of the majority of professional Scandinavian photographers. It is perhaps the most important Hasselblad camera made, as it was what got Scandinavian professionals to move away from Kodak and Agfa, which had more or less 90% of the professional market at the time.
In 1948, the camera later known as the 1600 F was released. The new design was complex, and many small improvements were needed to create a reliable product; the watchmaking background of many of the designers produced a design, which was sophisticated, but more delicate than what was permissible for a camera. Only around 50 units were produced in 1949, and perhaps 220 in 1950, of what collectors have now designated the Series One camera.
The Series Two versions of the 1600 F, perhaps as many as 3300 made from 1950 to 1953, were more reliable but still subject to frequent repairs, with many units having been cannibalized or modified by the factory. The biggest problem was its shutter, a focal-plane shutter that was hard to keep accurate. Using 120 size film it was formatted to a square 6 × 6 cm or 2+1⁄4 × 2+1⁄4 inches, which meant there was no more need to turn the camera on its side.
In 1954, they mated the groundbreaking new 38 mm Biogon lens designed by Ludwig Bertele of Zeiss to a shallow non-reflex body to produce the SWA (supreme wide angle, later changed to super wide angle). Though a specialty product not intended to sell in large numbers, the SWA was an impressive achievement, and derivatives were sold for decades. Hasselblad took their two products to the 1954 Photokina trade show in Germany, and word began to spread.
The real turning point for the company occurred in 1957. The 1000 F was replaced by the 500 C. The landmark 500 C design formed the basis for Hasselblad’s product line for the next sixty years, with variants being produced until 2013. It was not until 1960, though, that Hasselblad’s cameras became profitable; prior to this point, the company was still being entirely supported by sales of imported photographic supplies, including their distribution of Kodak products.
In 1962, NASA began to use Hasselblad cameras on space flights, and to request design modifications, e.g. the first motor-driven 500 EL camera. While Hasselblad had enjoyed a slowly but steadily growing reputation among professional photographers through the 1950s, the publicity created by NASA’s use of Hasselblad products dramatically increased name recognition for the brand.
In 1966, with the increasing success of the camera division, Hasselblad exited the photographic supply and retailing industry, selling Hasselblad Fotografiska AB to Kodak.
Victor established a camera workshop in the shed of an automobile factory in central Gothenburg. Close by was a junkyard, a resource that came in handy and supplied much-needed raw materials.
The beginnings of the Hasselblad camera line are found in the aerial ROSS HK-7. Although not Hasselblad’s first consumer camera, the HK-7 was the kick starter that Victor needed in order to open up his company’s first production space under the name Ross AB, which later led to the Hasselblad we know today.
Marketing booth for the 1600F in Cleveland, Ohio at The Photographic Trade Fair, March 1950. This was the first time that a Hasselblad camera was shown at a trade fair.
Hasselblad in other hands
In 1976, Victor Hasselblad sold Hasselblad AB to a Swedish investment company, Säfveån AB. In 1978, Victor Hasselblad died at the age of 72.
In his will, he left the majority of his sizeable fortune to the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is to promote research and academic teaching in the natural sciences and photography.
The annual photographic prize, The Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, is one of the most prestigious photographic awards in the world and a fitting memorial to Victor and the world of photography that he loved so much.
To the stock exchange
In 1984, Victor Hasselblad AB went public, with 42.5% of the company being sold on the Swedish stock exchange. The next year, Swedish corporation Incentive AB bought 58.1% of Hasselblad, and in 1991, they acquired the remainder of the shares, taking VHAB back to being a private corporation.
In 1985 Hasselblad established the subsidiary, Hasselblad Electronic Imaging AB, to focus on digital imaging and transmission systems.
In 1996, Hasselblad was sold, with the new owners being UBS, Cinven, and the Hasselblad management.
In January 2003, the Shriro Group acquired a majority shareholding in Hasselblad. The group had been the distributors for Hasselblad in Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan ROC, Singapore, and Malaysia for over 45 years.
The following year, in August 2004, Shriro Sweden, the holding company of Victor Hasselblad AB, and Swedish subsidiary of Shriro Group, announced the acquisition of high-end scanner and digital cameraback manufacturer, Imacon (established in 1995 to launch the Flextight scanners).
On 30 June 2011, A German private equity firm Ventizz announced it had acquired a 100% stake in Hasselblad. In late 2015, Chinese aerial photography and drone manufacturer DJI acquired a minority interest in Hasselblad. In early January 2017 DJI acquired the majority stake.
A few words must be added to the extensive Hasselblad story anyway. This concerns the unconditional support that Victor received from his wife Erna during his 50-year marriage. Everyone who ever interacted with Erna and Victor Hasselblad was struck by how much the two belonged together.
As Victor’s constant support system, Erna was by his side from the very beginning – from opening Victor’s Foto shop together in Gothenburg to the first workshop where the Hasselblad we know today started.
Born on 27 July 1914, Erna Nathhorst (as was her name before marrying Victor Hasselblad) grew up in Falun, Sweden, before the family relocated to Stockholm. At the young age of 19, with just a bit of luck, Erna and Victor met.
As the story goes, it was Erna’s sister Birgit that Victor was smitten with. With Victor living in Gothenburg, Birgit had purchased train tickets for a weekend to travel from Stockholm to see him. Suddenly falling ill right before the trip, Birgit was unable to leave her bed; instead of letting the tickets go to waste, Erna decided to go down to Gothenburg in her place.
That was in 1933, around the Christmas holidays. On 19 June 1934, Erna and Victor were married at Seglora Church in Stockholm.
After Victor Hasselblad’s passing on 5 August 1978, it was five years later on 8 July 1983 that Erna passed on as well. The memory of the pair lives on through the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg, Sweden.
On 6 October 1948, Victor introduced the Hasselblad 1600F. This model – a single-lens, mirror reflex, 6×6 camera with interchangeable Kodak lenses, film magazines, and viewfinders – was unveiled to critical acclaim at a press conference in New York City. The 1600F camera was a truly groundbreaking feat of engineering. Simply called Hasselblad originally, the camera received the name 1600F after the upgraded version, the 1000F, was introduced.
- HK-7 (1941–1945)
- SKa4 (1941–1945)
- 1600F (1948–1953)
- 1000F (1953–1957)
- V System 500 (1957–2013)
- V System 2000 and 200 (1977–2004)
- V System Superwide (1954–2006)
- V System Flexbody (1995–2003)
- XPan (1998–2006) (designed and manufactured by Fujifilm)
- H System (2002–present)
- Lunar (announced September 2012, shipped early 2013)
- X1D-50c (June 2016–June 2019) – the world’s first digital compact medium format mirrorless camera
- H6D-400c MS (2018–present) – Multi-Shot camera capturing 400-megapixel images by combining four 100-megapixel photos.
- X1D II 50C (announced June 2019) – second-generation of the above
- 907X (announced June 2019) – smallest Hasselblad camera body
- CFV II 50 (announced June 2019) – digital back
- X2D 100C (announced September 2022) – the third camera announced in the X system with a 100MP medium format BSI CMOS sensor.
Several different models of Hasselblad cameras were taken into space, all specially modified for the task.
NASA selected the Hasselblad cameras because of their interchangeable lenses and magazines. Modifications were made to permit ease of use in cramped conditions while wearing spacesuits, such as the replacement of the reflex mirror with an eye-level finder.
Modifications by NASA technicians were further refined and incorporated into new models by Hasselblad. For example, development of a 70 mm magazine was accelerated to meet the space program.
The Hasselblad 500C stripped of all leather covers
The first modified (in fact simplified) Hasselblad 500 C cameras were used on the last two Project Mercury missions in 1962 and 1963. They continued to be used throughout the Gemini spaceflights in 1965 and 1966.
This Hasselblad Lunar Surface Film Magazine was presented to Victor Hasselblad. For his contributions to the successful mission of Apollo 11. This film magazine was used on the Lunar Surface July 20-21. 1969 by Astronauts Neill A. Armstrong and Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
A general program of reliability and safety was implemented following the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, addressing such issues as reliability and safe operation of electrical equipment in a high-oxygen environment.
EL electric cameras were used for the first time on Apollo 8. A heavily modified 500 EL, the so-called Hasselblad Electric Camera (HEC) was used from Apollo 8 on board the spacecraft. Three 500 EL cameras were carried on Apollo 11.
An even more extensively modified Hasselblad EL data camera (HDC), equipped with a special Zeiss 5.6/60 mm Biogon lens and film magazines for 150–200 exposures, was used on the Moon surface on the Apollo 11 mission. This command module camera, carried on Apollo 11, was a simplified version of the commercial Hasselblad 500 EL motorized film advance camera. Used for colour still photography, it could operate in the command module or in the vacuum of space.
All following NASA missions also had Hasselblad cameras on board. The photographic equipment and films used on the five subsequent flights were similar to that taken on Apollo 11. On Apollo 15, the 500 mm telelens was added. During the Space Shuttle period cameras based on the 500 EL/M, 553 ELX, 205 TCC and 203 FE have been used.
FOUNDER: Jordan Klein
COMPANY NAMES:
1948: It started as Marine Enterprises (later Marineland, Inc. and Underwater Sports); 1950: Jerry Greenberg joined the company; 1953: Greenberg left and replaced by engineer Robert Thompson; They invented the MAKO SHARK underwater camera, which was marketed through the later 1950s and 1960s by fitness- and dive-equipment supplier HEALTHWAYS; 1962: Healthways went bankrupt on December 26; 1963: Continued under the name of SCUBAPRO.
COMPANY ADDRESSES:
1360 East 16th Street, Los Angeles 21, California; 3669 Seventh Avenue in Los Angeles, California.
When recreational scuba diving began its rise in popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, scuba diving gear was available to consumers through a number of small companies, one of those being Healthways. It was one of the five original USA diving gear makers: U.S. Divers, Healthways, Voit, Dacor, and Swimaster. Healthways went bankrupt in 1963; its successor company is Scubapro.
1947 – Jordan Klein starts a small company, Marine Enterprises, Inc., to manufacture spear guns and housings for underwater cameras. His company evolves into a retail store. When he has difficulty finding a good air source, he goes into the business of repairing and modifying war surplus air compressors.
In 1956, Klein will start importing parts from Germany’s Bauer organization and packaging his own compressors under the MAKO name. Klein saw early on the value of the term “scuba” and placed a copyright on the term, and soon all Healthways products had the term “SCUBA” somewhere in their product name.
In 1948 began manufacturing Lucite camera housings for Bolex, Argus, Rolleiflex, Leica, and Stereo-Realist cameras under the Mako brand name. In 1950, another pioneer underwater photographer, Jerry Greenberg, joined Jordan,
And they collaborated on the design and manufacture of an acrylic housing for the small Kodak Brownie roll film camera. Their housing was simple and inexpensive; 3,000 were sold at $14.95 through Abercrombie and Fitch.
In 1953, Greenberg left to form his own company, and Jordan, along with engineer Robert Thompson, designed an amphibious plastic camera based on the Kodak Brownie shutter and film transport mechanism.
Klein’s new camera, named the Mako Shark, was simply a box camera with a waterproof body. The Mako Shark appeared in dive stores in 1954.
In August of 1962, Healthways decided to create a professional line of equipment (regulators) and hired Dick Bonin and Gustave Della Valle (who was already director of the company) to develop this mission.
They chose the name of SCUBAPRO for this new professional line. But the company was in financial trouble and declared bankruptcy on December 26, 1962, just four months after hiring Dick and Gustave.
Dick and Gustave acquired the name Scubapro and Healthways for US$ 1.00. In 1974, Dick sold the company to Johnson Wax for $11 million. Dick Bonin became president of Scubapro until his retirement in 1997.
Scubapro merged with dive computer manufacturer Uwatec in 1997 and became part of Johnson Outdoors. The company, now known as “Scubapro Uwatec”, currently manufactures diving regulators, buoyancy compensators, dive computers, masks, fins, snorkels, wetsuits and dry suits, as well as scuba accessories.
The Mako Shark is a basic underwater camera designed in the 1950s. The camera’s optics, shutter, and film-holder are taken from a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera meaning the Mako Shark is also a fixed focus camera using 620 film.
It had a cylindrical form and was divided into front and rear sections that screwed together and sealed by an O-ring. The lens, shutter, and film transport assembly were built into the front section.
Externally, the front also included the viewfinder, handle, shutter release, and film advance knob. The rear section had a small window for viewing the exposure number on the film’s paper cover.
Versions exist with or without front-panel contacts for flash sync and the colour may be grey or black, with red accents.
Compact and inexpensive, the Mako Shark sold for just $9.95. The addition of a BC flash added $10 to the cost. Because of its simplicity and low price, the camera became very popular with neophyte divers, and Rexall Drug Stores sold 55,000 alone. Through the later 1950s and 1960s Healthways marketed the Mako Shark camera.
Jordan Klein in his workshop.
1834 – c. 1866: Claudet & Houghton; c. 1866 – 1874: Claudet, Houghton & Son; 1874 – 1902: George Houghton & Son; 1903 – 1904: George Houghton & Son Ltd.; 1904 – 1926: Houghtons Ltd.; 1926 – 1930: Houghton-Butcher (Great Britain) Ltd.; 1930 – 1940: Ensign Ltd.; Barnet-Ensign Ltd.; 1940 – 1945: Houghtons (Holborn) Showroom for Ensign products; 1945 – 1948; Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd. 1948 – 1954; 1954 – 1961: Ross Ensign.
1834-1898: 89 High Holborn, London; 1898 – 1940: 88/89 High Holborn, London; 1940 – 1945: 94 High Holborn, London – Showroom for Ensign products; 1945 – 1961: George West House, 2-3 Clapham Common North Side, London SW4 0QL.
Founded in 1915 when Houghtons Ltd. merged with W. Butcher and Sons Ltd. to form the Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Company, and its successors Houghton-Butcher, Barnet Ensign, Barnet Ensign Ross and Ross-Ensign, was one of Britain’s most successful camera-makers.
On the right hand side in the text an illustration of George Houghton & Son Ltd. 88/89 High Holborn, London in 1903, North side between French Horn Yard and Dane Street,Just to the west of modern day Red Lion Street. The image above shows the Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co. Ltd Ensign Works, Walthamstow, 1929
Houghtons grew out of the partnership of Antoine Claudet and George Houghton, trading in imported sheet glass and glass shades. In 1839 Claudet acquired a licence for the Daguerreotype process and, for a short time at least, the firm supplied Daguerreotype materials. When Claudet opened a photographic studio in 1841 Claudet & Houghton’s involvement in the Daguerreotype probably ended. During the wet-plate period Houghtons were supplying glass plates, photograph mounts and other items including cameras, in the 1880s the firm supplied dry-plates under their own trademark.
In 1889 a relatively new company, the Photographic Apparatus & Chemical Co., was acquired. From that time the firm expanded substantially especially in the supply of cameras. In 1894 the stock and goodwill of Amphlett Humphreys & Co. Ltd was acquired. In 1899 the sensitised paper side of the London & Blackfriars Photographic Supply Co., which must have been the old Spicer Brothers operation, was acquired. By the 1900s they were leading wholesalers carrying a complete range of photographic products. George Houghton & Son Ltd was registered on the 1st January 1903 with capital of £100,000, 20% of the shares were offered to the public.
In 1904 Spratt Brothers, Joseph Levi & Co., Holmes Brothers and Ilex Camera Works joined George Houghton to form Houghtons Ltd. Houghtons Ltd was registered in March 1904 with share capital of £175,000, the directors were: G. Houghton, M.L. Isaacs, E.W. Houghton, L.M. Isaacs, A.S. Spratt and H.J. Spratt. In 1915 the manufacturing companies in the group were separated to form, together with Butcher & Son, Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co.
Brand names, sometimes taken from constituent companies, include: Klito (from J. Levi), Victo (G. Houghton), Holborn (G. Houghton) and Tudor (from Spratt Brothers works). The Ensign name as a trademark was registered in 1902. The Sanderson camera was produced by Houghton and manufactured by Holmes Brothers. Houghtons merged with Butcher & Son in 1926 to form Houghton-Butcher (Great Britain) Ltd, this was a sales organisation, and the Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Company carried out manufacturing.
During World War II
The headquarters of the trading company Ensign were destroyed by an air raid on the night of 24/25 September 1940 (see the story on Ensign Ltd.).
In October, the goodwill and assets of the company, including enlargers, epidiascopes and cine-cameras, were taken over by Johnson and Sons Manufacturing Chemists but the trademark Ensign was kept by the manufacturing company Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co which assumed the advertising and distribution of the Ensign cameras alone until 1945. Stanley Houghton and Fred Butcher, directors of Ensign, joined the board of Johnsons.
Johnsons formed a company – Houghtons (Holborn) – to carry on the Ensign retail business with premises at 94 High Holborn. The new premises of Johnsons at 94 High Holborn were more or less a showroom for Ensign products after Johnsons takeover, but this did not last for long.
High-Holborn street rebuilt in the 60’s
88-89 High Holborn, London after an air raid, 1940
post World War II
In 1945, Houghton-Butcher Manufacturing Co., Ltd. associated with the filmmaker Elliott & Sons Ltd. (maker of the film brand ‘Barnet’) and became Barnet Ensign Ltd.
In 1948 Ross and Barnet Ensign were merged to Barnet Ensign Ross Ltd., which was finally renamed Ross-Ensign Ltd in 1954. George Houghton’s sons and grandsons continued in the business until the firm disappeared in 1961, when the company stopped making cameras.
Extensive stories about the period Ensign Ltd. and the post-war period of Ross-Ensign Ltd. are described in detail in the respective chapters on this site.
(some carried the Ensign logo)
- Briton no’s 1, 1a, 2 & 3
- Duchess
- Empress
- King
- May Fair (box)
- Mascot
- Queen
- Royal Mail Stereolette
- Shuttle
- Smyth Stereo- Handcamera
- Stereo Victo
- Sylvar
- Ticka watch camera
- Triple Victo
- Triple Victo Stereo
- Tropical Victo
- Tudor
- Verifying Camera
- Victo
- Victo Superbe
A Houghton-Butcher Ensign Special Reflex Tropical Model SLR Camera
FOUNDERS: Robert Forgie (BOB) Hunter and Maud Hunter
COMPANY NAMES:
1920 – 1927: Hunters; 1927 – 1960: R.F. Hunter Ltd; 1960: R.F.Hunter (Holdings) Ltd.; On 12th November 1981 the Board decided that the company could not continue its business
COMPANY ADDRESSES:
1920 – 1932: 39-40 Doughty Street, London; 1932 – 1981: Celfix House House, 51-53 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1.
The Cheltenham Promenade around 1900.
R.F. Hunter Advertisement in the British Journal Almanac of 1930.
A Rolleiflex advertisement of R.F. Hunter; 1930.
The Company named R.F.Hunter Ltd was formed on 3rd November 1921 and acquired the photographic businesses at No.9 Cavendish Circus, Buxton and at No.3 The Promenade, Cheltenham (the latter announced in the Gloucestershire Citizen on 8th November 1921).
The first subscribers in the new company were, naturally, Robert Forgie (Bob) Hunter and his wife Maud, but also E.Grundy of Manchester. Robin Selby conjectures that E.Grundy probably helped to form the new company and that was his sole contribution. The Cheltenham premises were (prior to 1920) run by Gordon Baynton.
Robert Forgie Hunter (16th June 1879 – December 1954) was born in Newton Stewart in Southern Scotland within a large family. Robert Forgie was always known as Bob Hunter. Bob Hunter, of course, made photographic retail and distribution his life-long career. One of the earliest photographic businesses owned by him was at 9 Cavendish Circle, Buxton, and Derbyshire.
Robert Forgie Hunter was in the Army with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) at the time of the Second Boer War (Second South African War; 1899-1902).
He subsequently married Maud May Clayton on 29th October 1906. She and Bob had two sons, William Clayton Hunter and Cyril Robert Hunter. The Kelly’s directory for 1912 shows Bob Hunter as a photographic material dealer at No. 1 The Quadrant, Buxton. Maud was a confectioner and had another shop in Buxton, at No. 4 Station Approach, Buxton.
During the First World War Bob Hunter served with the Royal & Mechanical Engineers, remaining a Sapper throughout his service.
The photographic business at No. 1 The Quadrant subsequently relocated to No. 9 Cavendish Circus, Buxton. This photographic business was later (sometime around the mid-1920s) sold to James Board, a company that was still trading in the 1970’s.
Around 1920, Bob Hunter acquired another shop at No. 3 The Promenade, Cheltenham.
The Company named R.F.Hunter Ltd was formed on 3rd November 1921 and acquired the photographic businesses at No. 9 Cavendish Circus, Buxton and at No. 3 The Promenade, Cheltenham. As can be deduced from newspaper reports, Bob Hunter sold his Cheltenham premises and his Buxton premises sometime around 1927.
Of course, R.F.Hunter became well known for their London based wholesale photographic equipment distribution business, initially at 40 Doughty Street (around 1923) and subsequently (by 1932) at 51-53 Gray’s Inn Road. On 14th November 1927 the Directors of R.F.Hunter Ltd were:
- Robert Forgie Hunter, resident at 40 Doughty Street, London, WC2
- Maud May Hunter, resident at 40 Doughty Street, London, WC2
- Sydney Oram, resident at 24 Hardwick Street, Buxton
- Arthur Blackburn, resident at 2 Coppermill Lane, Walthamstow (London).
In all early advertisements Bob Hunter offered cameras by Dr. Nagel, its possible to see some sense in this business strategy, viz.: If Bob Hunter saw his future in camera distribution rather than retail, and sought to act as UK-distributor for Nagel cameras.
Possibly helped by R.F.Hunter already acting as distributors for Dr. Nagel’s cameras, it was about this time that Paul Franke of Rollei had a conversation with Robert Forgie Hunter with the result that Bob Hunter became the UK distributor for what was to become the world famous Rollei Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) camera range.
Namely, at the end of 1929 the first Rolleiflex cameras had been manufactured. Orders from the UK, and around the world, were far greater than Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke ever anticipated, and by 1930 Rollei had back orders for 8,000 cameras!
Cavendish Circus Buxton, Derbyshire.
A R.F.Hunter advertisement that appeared in The Bystander magazineon June 24th 1925.
1932; Celfix House House, at 51 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1.
The showroom at Celfix House House, at 51 Gray’s Inn Road.
The picture shows a 19 year old Peter Simmons, hard at work around 1960 repairing Rolleicord twin lens reflex cameras in the R.F. Hunter Camera Repair Department.
‘Celfix’ projection screens were always a major product line from by R.F.Hunter. The name ‘Celfix’, is a word that became synonymous with R.F. Hunter’s head quarters when they moved to Gray’s Inn Road.
The home ciné film format in use at the time of the CELFIX screens being introduced would have been 16 mm, brought out by Kodak in 1923. This was expensive for amateur (home) use, but this screen meant that R.F.Hunter was well placed to take advantage of the arrival of the new, lower cost, 8 mm home ciné format, introduced by Kodak in 1932 (USA) and which appeared in the UK in Spring 1933. The projection screen business was an important source of R.F.Hunter’s revenue. Initially, Hunters only produced the fabric part of the screen but subsequently they acquired the manufacturer of the metal supporting parts too.
The move to ‘Celfix House’ at 51-53 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1, seemingly occurred between October 1931 and 1932 as a result of increased turnover. Certainly, the Rollei camera became an instant success, which would have added to the firm’s camera distribution activities (including the Purma camera and its accessories from around 1937).
Unfortunately, the company’s progress was interrupted by WW2. Nonetheless, the availability of German Rollei cameras was immediately lost and life in London, both domestic and commercial, became disturbed by air raids. By 1946, the company of R.F.Hunter returned to Celfix House at 51-53, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1, though screen manufacture continued at Leighton Buzzard
They also operated a repair workshop at premises opposite Celfix House, namely 160-164 Gray’s Inn Road. The workshop specialised in repairs to Rolleiflex and Rolleicord cameras, claiming, “we hold complete stocks of genuine factory parts”. This would have been cheaper and more convenient than parcelling Rolleis back & forth to Braunschsweig in Germany to the Franke & Heidecke factory. It is reasonable to suppose repairs will have been undertaken for the Gilbert, Purma, Franka and Solida cameras.
On 13th July 1948 the Directors of R.F.Hunter Ltd were:
- Robert Forgie Hunter, resident at Egremont, Dalry, Castle Douglas; also a Director of Cine Screens Ltd and Rolleiflex Ltd.
- Arthur Blackburn, resident at 501 Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-Sea; also a Director of Cine Screens Ltd and Rolleiflex Ltd.
- Cyril Robert Hunter, resident at 49 Fitzroy Road, Regent Park, London; also a Director of Rolleiflex Ltd.
Cine Screens Ltd was clearly the company responsible for manufacturing and marketing the CELFIX projection screens, but it is difficult to know what Rolleiflex Ltd was for. Apart from ‘Celfix’ cine screens, the range of Hunter screens in 1948 included ‘Roller’ screens, ‘Self-Recta’ and ‘Raybrite’.
An advertisement for the automated and patented ‘Celfix’ cine projection screen, taken from an Amateur Photographer magazine dated 7th October 1931.
Celfix Cine Screen Portable Projector Screen Roll Up in Wood Case – 1m
The original design of Paterson developing tank, the ’35’, is shown in an advert within the British Journal Photographic Almanac for 1950, where the distributors RF Hunter of “Celfix House”, show ‘The Paterson 35mm Ratchet Loading Developing Tank’.
One of the first Hunter/Paterson advertisements appeared in the Amateur Photographer Magazine of 8th December 1954.
By the late 1940’s Donald Paterson and Cyril Hunter were firm friends. His connection with R.F.Hunter Ltd was as an inventor of (amateur) home developing and printing equipment, which he marketed through R.F.Hunter under the brand name of Paterson Products.
The war with Germany meant the loss of Rolleiflex and Rolleicord camera imports to the UK and even though the war ended 8th May 1945, R.F.Hunter didn’t advertise the Rollei range of cameras again until 1952. The import restrictions weren’t entirely lifted until 1960.
As can be seen in a 1959/60 R.F. Hunter catalogue, the price of Rollei equipment had increased considerably compared to 1939, when a Rolleiflex with a F3.5 Tessar had cost just £31.25p.
Other cameras within the catalogue, of more modest price, were the German made Franka and Solida range of cameras, with the Japanese Petri range. The Purma camera seems no longer to have been marketed after 1951 and the Gilbert box camera also seems to disappear from the catalogue by 1960.
In the post-war years, while waiting the recommencement of supplies of Rollei cameras, R.F.Hunter acted as distributor to other UK produced photographic equipment plus, of course, their expanding range of projection screens. By the 1950s, the demand for projection screens was rapidly increasing.
The other product range that was rapidly expanding throughout the 1950s was the one devised by Donald Paterson. By 1952 there were two Paterson developing tanks, but this range did increase year on year to soon cover every darkroom requirement.
Robert Forgie Hunter died in 1955 and in 1960 R.F.Hunter was ‘floated’ on the London Stock Market, becoming R.F.Hunter (Holdings) Ltd. In 1966, Johnsons of Hendon purchased R.F.Hunter (Holdings) Ltd. and a new distribution agreement was signed with Rollei Werke in 1966. In 1972 Hestair took over Johnsons of Hendon.
Hestair sold off R.F.Hunter (Holdings) Ltd in 1972, surprisingly to Rollei. German directors were appointed on 12th July 1972. On 12th November 1981 the Board decided that the company could not, by reason of its liabilities, continue its business, and that it should be wound up. The liquidator was appointed on the same day.
Two of the most famous cameras from the R.F. Hunter range: on the left the Stainless-Steel Fronted Gilbert Box Camera with Rotating ViewFinder and on the right the Gravity Control Shuttered Purma Box Camera.
An advertisement in the magazine Practical Photography, May 1960 shows the full range of Paterson slide viewers at that time.
Brands represented by R.F. Hunter Ltd. over the years
- Aldis Projectors
- Buxhunter Development Tanks
- Celfix Projection Screens
- Gilbert Cameras
- Horvex Exposure Meters
- Kobold Flashguns
- Dr. Nagel
- Paterson Darkroom Products
- Purma Cameras
- Petri Cameras
- Raybrite Screens
- Rollei TLR Cameras
- Roller Screens
- Self-Recta Screens
- Solida Cameras
- Transparol Foto Fixers
- Wasp Enlargers
Internationale Camera Actiengesellschaft (ICA);
In the fall of 1926, ICA merged with Zeiss Ikon.
1909: Dresden-Striesen, Schandauer Straße 72–80; 1936-1938: Glashütter Straße 101.
An organizational chart of the ICA merger.
Main factory complex with 6 associated official and worker residential buildings of the ICA, Aktiengesellschaft Dresden, currently (in 1913) the largest camera and cinema factory in Europe, with over 1500 officials and workers.
The Internationale Camera Aktiengesellschaft (ICA) was founded in 1909, when four camera makers merged. It were R. Hüttig & Sohn AG in Dresden, Kamerawerk Dr. Krügener in Frankfurt am Main, Emil Wünsche AG in Reick near Dresden and the Palmos camera manufacturing department of Carl Zeiss AG.
Hüttig, one of the oldest camera makers to take part on this new venture was founded in 1862. These four initiated the merger to combat growing competition.
In 1912, the ICA took over the G. Zulauf camera factory in Zurich.
Zulauf (sometimes referred to as G.Zulauf, Zürich) was the name of a small camera maker in Zurich, Switzerland. It was founded by Gottlieb Zulauf a swiss mechanic and photographic retailer.
Supposedly around 1901 he started to make cameras and with the launch of the high quality models Bébé and Polyscop created some attention at Carl Zeiss. They offered Zulauf a merger with the Internationale Camera Actiengesellschaft (ICA) in Dresden, whereupon the swiss moved his production there in 1911/1912 and became technical director of ICA.
Europe’s Largest…
Shortly before the First World War, the ICA was Europe’s largest camera factory and was based in Dresden-Striesen, Schandauer Straße 72–80.
The Wünsche factory in Reick was closed immediately after the merger, but reopened as production place since the request for cameras rose these days, giving ICA a good start.
The intention to include the Dresden Ernemann works also in the merger failed. So Ernemann remained the new company’s largest competitor and was also superior to the ICA until 1926 in terms of the technical quality of the products.
The first board included Guido Mengel (as a former Hüttig employee) and Hermann Krügener. In the following years, the camera work of Dr. R. Krügener in Frankfurt am Main and temporarily also the Wünsche plant in Dresden-Reick closed.
In the 1920s, the ICA concluded a community of interest contract with the Contessa-Nettel-Werke AG in Stuttgart. In autumn 1926, ICA was one of the name-giving partners in Zeiss-Ikon. The others were Ernemann, also in Dresden, Goerz and Contessa-Nettel.
Originally, the new company logo was a five-pointed star which was taken over in a slightly different form from Hüttig AG. Later the logo was changed to a light-bearing angel.
products
ICA produced a variety of cameras, continuing some of the camera lines of the founding companies. The plate cameras Sirene 135 and Ideal are common. New original ICA products were added soon, for example the Icarette. The serial number system employed by Zeiss Ikon until its demise in 1972 was initiated early on when ICA was established, using a letter preceding the serial number.
ICA mainly produced cameras and accessories, but also slide projectors, epidiascopes and 35 mm film projectors. The Monopol-model became widespread among film projectors. There were four different versions of it, of which a total of 10,000 were produced as from 1914. Other ICA cinema equipment was Lloyd, Tosca, Furor, Goliath and a toy cinema, which was sold under the name Teddy.
Camera, Volta 125
(1890-1914)
A plate or folding camera; The brilliant viewfinder can be rotated, in the middle of the standard. The wooden case is covered with black leather.
The slide is made of metal with a simple pull-out. The standard is adjustable in height. On top of the case is a leather strap.
Roll film camera ICA Halloh 511
(1914)
The roll film camera “ICA Halloh 511″ is suitable for roll film 8.3 x 10.5”. The exposure time is set above the lens. The inscription “ICA” is embossed in italics on the back of the leather.
Metal case: frame reinforced with wood, black leather.
Stereo folding camera Stereo Ideal 650
(1914)
Standard format folding-bed plate camera but for stereo images on 9 x 18cm plates; twin leather bellows; leatherette covered steel body. The aperture control set between the lenses, with the speed dial on right hand lens. The camera is fitted with a rising front, operated by a vernier screw on the left hand side.
Roll film camera Zeiss-Ikon Icarette
(1930)
This is a Zeiss-Ikon Icarette produced in 1930. Originally produced by Ica, this camera was reintroduced as a Zeiss-Ikon product. It was a high-end 6×9 camera that was designed to use both plate film and 120 roll film. It has a removable back that allows various accessories to be slid into place.
The Pentacon plant at Glashütter Straße 101 in Dresden, (former Ica building, 1936-1938), architects Emil Högg and Georg Rüth.
Plate Cameras
- Bébé
- Lola
- Maximar
- Niklas
- Orix
- Polyscop (stereo)
- Reflex
- Reisekamera (wooden folding field camera, at least in 13×18 cm size)
- Tropical Favorit
- Victrix
- Volta
Continued Hüttig Models
- Atom, Atom B
- Aviso
- Lloyd
- Cupido
- Stereolette
- Ideal
- Künstler-Kamera
Continued Hüttig Models
- Nelson
- Stereo Ideal
- Teddy 146
- Toska 110 (vertical)
- Toska 215 (vertical 9×12)
- Toska 330 (horizontal 10×15, panorama & stereo)
- Toska 400 (horizontal 9×12, panorama & stereo)
- Trilby
Continued Wünsche Models
- Juwel
- Reicka 12 x 9 plate camera
- Sirene 135, Sirene 105
Continued Krügener Models
- Teddy
- Trona
Continued Zeiss-Palmos Models
- Minimum-Palmos, Stereo Minimum-Palmos
- Universal-Palmos
ROLL FILM
- Icarette
Continued Wünsche Models
- Nixe
Continued Krügener Models
- Halloh
- ICA Halloh 570
CINE
- Emanuel Goldberg, who was also a member of the board in the mid-1920s, developed at the ICA his Kinamo, a spring-loaded film camera.
FOUNDER: Johan Steenbergen
COMPANY NAMES:
1912: Industrie- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH., Dresden; 1913: Industrie- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH – Fabrik von photographischen Apparaten und Bedarfsartikeln 1913: Ihagee Kamerawerk GmbH; 1918: Ihagee Kamerawerk Steenbergen & Co.; ± 1935: Offene Handelsgesellschaft Ihagee Kamerawerke Steenbergen & Co.; 1951: Ihagee Kamerawerk AG i. V.; 1960: Ihagee Kamerawerk AG Frankfurt/Main this became in 1973 Ihagee-Exakta Photo AG in Munich; 1968: Integrated at Kombinat VEB Pentacon; 1970: fully included as Objekt 18 in Kombinates VEB Pentacon; In 1990, the plant had to stop production by trustee decision and was subsequently wound up.
COMPANY ADDRESSES:
1912: Friedrichstadt, Semmelweisstraße 8 (Marcolinistraße 8); 1923: Schandauer Straße 24 in Striesen; 1945: moving to the Delta-Werk of Zeiss Ikon AG in the Blasewitzer Straße 41, Dresden; dissolved in 1990.
Ihagee Kamerawerk was one of the largest photographic companies in the world, best known for the Exakta brand, first used on their revolutionary small format SLR (single lens reflex) of 1933 which used 127 format roll film. In 1936, Ihagee produced another world first, the first miniature format SLR which used the new 35mm film cassette, also named Exakta (or Kine Exakta).
The Ihagee company was founded by Dutch designer Johan Steenbergen, a young man from Meppel, who had worked at Ernemann’s camera factory since 1908. In 1912 Steenbergen left the company and set up his own company. The first seat of this company was in the rooms of a former carpentry shop at Marcolinistraße 8 in Friedrichstadt.
A year later, the company was given the name “Industrie- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH – factory of photographic equipment and supplies”, whereby the abbreviation Ihagee (written as it is pronounced (in German: eehahgay) quickly prevailed.
The company produced conventional folding rollfilm and plate cameras, bellows and macro extension rings, microscope adapters, flash equipment and enlargers. Lenses were always supplied by other companies. The name was changed to Ihagee Kamerawerk GmbH in 1913.
By 1918, the German economy was in serious trouble and so was Ihagee. It was liquidated and set up again. After the merger with the company of camera carpenter Emil Englisch in 1918, the factory was called Ihagee Kamerawerk Steenbergen & Co. The shareholders were Johan Steenbergen, Emil Englisch, Hugo Frauenstein, Otto Diebel, Emil Kirsch, Konrad Koch and Herman Schubert. By 1925, Ihagee produced 1,000 rollfilm cameras a day.
After several relocations, the company settled in 1924 in the immediate vicinity of other major camera manufacturers in a new building at Schandauer Strasse 24 in Striesen. A branch was located on Augsburger Strasse.
In the same year, Karl Nüchterlein starts working as a mechanic in the company. In 1929, the company premises were supplemented by another new building.
Cameras such as the Photorex (1912), the Corona travel camera (1918), the Plan Paff-Reflex single-lens reflex camera (1921), the Patent-Klapp-Reflex foldable single-lens reflex camera (1924), the “Neugold” tropical photo folding (1927), the sheet film The patent duplex camera (1928), the serial reflex cameras (1928) and night reflex cameras (1929) and the roll-film folding camera Auto-Ultix (1930) came from this company.
In 1933 the Exakta A was presented. It was a single lens reflex camera and was greeted with skepticism. This Exakta took 4×6,5cm pictures on 127 film. The Exakta line was to become Ihagee’s major success.
In 1936 its most famous camera, the Kine-Exakta, designed under the responsibility of Karl Nüchterlein, was presented at the Leipziger Messe. This was the first SLR to take 24×36 mm pictures on perforated 35mm cinema film with shutter speeds from 12 seconds to 1/1000 second.
From the beginning the 35mm Exakta was a system camera, offering interchangeable lenses with a focal length of 38 to 500 mm, finders, microscope adapters and plate film backs. A vacuum flash device could be connected if required. This model is now called the Standard-Exakta (Vest Pocket Exakta in English speaking countries).
In 1937 the development of the Exakta 6×6 began. The first cameras were offered in 1939. Due to the complicated film transport in roll film compared to perforated 35mm film, there were considerable functional problems and production was discontinued at the end of 1939.
Shareholders after the restart in 1918 were: Johan Steenbergen (69% ownership) Emil Englisch, Otto Diebel, Hermann Schubert, Hugo Frauenstein, Conrad Koch and Emil Kirsch.
Ihagee Patent Folding Reflex Camera (Advertisement in Photographie für Alle magazine, 1928).
During World War II, Dresden was heavily bombed, destroying or disabling many area camera factories.
Ihagee camera factory Dresden, Blasewitzer Str. 41/43, (from “A miniature camera is created”; photo yearbook 1958).
By 1940 camera production ceased because of the war. In 1941, the open trading company Ihagee Kamerawerke Steenbergen & Co, as the company was now called, was confiscated by the National Socialists. In the same year, Steenbergen left the management.
The Dutch working capital was confiscated and on January 1, 1942 the company was converted into a public limited company. Although he was able to keep his company shares, it was not possible for him to influence the development of the company.
Company founder Johan Steenbergen had a Jewish wife and, although she was an American citizen, he considered it wise to leave Germany and emigrate to the USA on May 15, 1942. He never saw Dresden and his company again.
Until the end of the war, Ihagee Kamerawerk AG primarily manufactured navigation devices on behalf of the Wehrmacht.
In February 1945 Dresden, a very beautiful city, was heavily bombed because it was so beautiful. The allies hoped this would demoralize the Germans so much that they would end the war. That didn’t happen but the Ihagee factory was completely destroyed. Only a few machines and some parts, stored elsewhere, were recovered a few months later.
After 1945, the company moved its headquarters to the Zeiss Ikon AG Delta factory on Blasewitzer Strasse, as the parent company on Schandauer Strasse had been completely destroyed. With the help of machines that had been laboriously recovered from the rubble, production was resumed in 1945.
In 1945, the Ihagee production facilities, now known as Ihagee Kamerawerke AG, found themselves in the Soviet occupation zone. For a time Ihagee had a special place in East Germany; while German camera making companies were being nationalized into VEB (= Volks Eigene Betrieb = company owned by the people) Zeiss Ikon/Pentacon,
Ihagee had a certain autonomy because it had been Dutch-owned and East German officials were reluctant to damage international relations. The company was managed by the GDR’s VEB Optik. It was not until 1968 that the Ihagee merged into the VEB Pentacon combine.
After the war, Ihagee continued to make Kine Exakta cameras and later Exa models. Models used for export to the USA were engraved with “Soviet occupied Germany”.
The 1950 Exakta was the world’s first miniature camera with exchangeable viewfinders. This model is known as the Exakta II. The Exakta has been produced, in many upgraded models, from 1936 till 1969. The oldest lenses fit the newest model and vice versa.
In 1950 the Exakta Varex or V was introduced. Sources on the Internet report the American company Argus quickly reserved the “Varex” name as a trademark and never used it, thus blocking the import of Exakta Varex cameras to the USA. Export models were renamed Exakta VX.
It’s the same camera with a different nameplate. The Exakta Varex series had interchangeable pentaprisms, later ones were even metered. They’re beautiful cameras with a reputation of good quality. So good, a professional photographer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear window (1954) uses an Exakta.
In the 1950s, the company, which was now under state trusteeship, was founded under the name Ihagee Kamerawerk AG i. V., merged with other Dresden manufacturers and from 1968 belonged to the VEB PENTACON combine.
East Germany could not keep up with the technological development in the western world and Japan. Besides that, the East German government was unhappy with a company that had a foreign owner and could not be nationalized. So they let it decline; in the end it was just a sign on the wall of Pentacon, the Praktica factory.
The 35mm film camera used by Jeff is an Exakta VX Ihagee Dresden, with the Exakta logo covered by a piece of black material in the movie. Why choose the Exakta? In the time the film was shot, there were really only three 35mm camera systems with global recognition: Leica, Contax, and Exakta. Hitchcock could have used a Leica with a reflex housing for the telephoto lens (e.g. Visoflex II), but a solution with a one-eyed reflex with a prism viewfinder was more elegant. Why was the brand covered with black tape? To cover up its East German / Communist origins? This may have played a role, but more likely just an avoidance of advertising in film.
The Exakta Real in an advertisement from 1966.
Also in the 1950s Steenbergen returned to Germany from the USA and tried in vain to get his company back, tried to get royalties, tried to have his Exakta produced in the West, all with no success. To achieve this, he moved the seat of the company to West Germany and founded Ihagee Kamerawerk AG in Frankfurt am Main in 1960, which was later based in Munich (the company also gave an address in West Berlin). Ihagee West, as we usually call it, started many lawsuits against Ihagee East (the original company in Dresden). Eventually, Steenbergen won the naming dispute against the “East German Ihagee”, but not until 1969, two years after his death in 1967.
One of the results of the lawsuits was that the Exakta had to be called “Elbaflex” in West Germany and Ihagee “aus Dresden”. Ihagee West has also produced its own camera, the Exakta Real, which was presented at the Photokina in 1963 but only brought to market in 1966. It turned out that this camera was unreliable and a failure. Only about 1,000 of them were built.
Later they made their own version of the Exakta 66, a high quality medium format camera that used Pentacon Six mount lenses or dedicated Schneider lenses. A rangefinder camera Exa 35E seems to have been a little success. In 1967 the company, which was now based in West Berlin again under the name Ihagee Kamerawerk AG, gave up its own camera production and concentrated – until the 1980s – exclusively on the distribution of Japanese cameras under the Exakta label – with moderate success. Ihagee West was closed down in 1976.
In 1970 the formally continued Ihagee Kamerawerk AG i. V. (Ihagee East) in Dresden handed over their production facilities and personnel to the VEB Pentacon combine by means of a usage agreement, which ended the company’s history. In 1973, the Exakta series were discontinued. From then on, only various parts for camera construction were manufactured in the company. The little sister of the Exakta, the Exa, was produced by VEB Pentacon in the form of the Exa 1c until 1987.
In 1990, the plant had to stop production by trustee decision and was then wound up. The buildings were demolished in the mid-1990s in favor of a new office complex.
The company provided a.o. following cameras:
Folders, Reflex Boxes and others
- Neugold
- Roll-Paff
- Roll-Paff-Reflex
- Corona
- Derby
- Plan-Paff-Reflex
- Rulex
- Ultrix
- Auto-Ultrix with plate back wall
- Venus
- Patent-Klapp-Reflex
- Ama
- Luxus Duplex
- Ultrix Stereo
- Stereo-Automat
- Serien-Reflex
- Double shutter Duplex
- Auto-Photoklapp
- Nachtreflex
- Sport-Kamera
- Double format-Auto-Ultrix
- Parvola
- Vestpocket -Auto-Ultrix
Early Folding Cameras
- Photorex
- Photorekord
- Photoklapp
- Viktor
- Patent-Duplex
- Triplex
- Weltrekord-Kamera
- Microbie
- Photoknips
- Exakta A
- Exakta B
- Night Exakta
- Exakta C
- Exakta 6×6 (horizontal, 1939)
- Exakta 66 (vertical, 1953)
- Exakta 66
- Exakta 66 II
- Exakta 66 III
EXA 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
- Exakta Real
- Exakta HS-50 (appears to be rebadged Seagull DF-300)
- Exakta Kine and Varex Series
- Kine Exakta
- Kine Exakta II
- Exakta Varex/V
- Exakta Varex VX/VX
- Exakta Varex IIA/VX IIA
- Exakta Varex IIB/VX IIB
- Exakta VX 1000
- Exakta VX 500
- Exakta RTL 1000
- Exakta 500 (name variant of the Exa 500)
- Exakta Twin TL and TL 42
- Exakta TL 500/1000
- Exakta FE 2000
- Exakta EDX 2
- Exakta EDX 3
- Exakta HS-1( Cosina CT1G)
- Exakta HS-2 (Cosina CT1S)
- Exakta HS-10(Cosina CT1E)
- Exakta HS-3 ( Cosina CT7)
- Exakta HS-40 (Cosina CT9)
COMPANY NAMES:
1879: Britannia Works; 1886: Britannia Works Company; 1898: The Britannia Works Limited; 1902: Ilford Limited; 1920 Selo Limited; 1959 ICI acquired a majority share holding in Ilford; 1969 Ciba acquire all ICI shares in ILFORD and became sole owner of ILFORD Limited; 1970: Ciba becomes Ciba-Geigy; 1989: Ciba-Geigy sold Ilford to International Paper Corporation of America; 1990 Ilford and International Paper Corporation of America merged to Ilford Anitec; 1997 Ilford Anitec was sold onto Doughty Hanson & Co and subsequently rebranded ILFORD Imaging Ltd.; 2005: Ilford Imaging UK Limited became Harman Technology Ltd. and traded as Ilford Photo; 2015: Ilford Photo announced that Harman Technology Limited had been acquired by Pemberstone Ventures;
2005: the Swiss part of the company and the plant at Marly was bought by the Oji Paper Company of Japan; 2010: Paradigm Global Partners LLP buys the Swiss part under the name Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH; 2013: Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH was declared bankrupt resulting in the closure of the Marly plant. The ‘Ilford Imaging’ brand and trademarks (but not the Marly plant) was subsequently acquired by Australian firm CR Kennedy & Company Pty Ltd and Japan-based Chugai Photo Chemical Company;
COMPANY ADDRESSES:
1879: The ‘Elmhurst- house’, on the corner of Cranbrook Road and Park Avenue in Ilford, Essex, north east London, UK; 1970s, Ilford’s administrative address was 29-37 Roden Street, Ilford IG1 2AB; 1996, the sales and administration offices were moved from London to Mobberley; 2023: Town Lane, Mobberley, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 7JL, England.
Ilford Photo is a UK manufacturer of mainly photographic materials known worldwide for its black-and-white film and papers and chemicals, and its range of Ilfochrome and Ilfocolor colour printing materials, before these were discontinued. Ilford Photo has experienced a tumultuous history since its origins in 1879, with ownership of the company changing hands several times.
Naturally, every effort has been made to make this description of the Ilford company as accurate and comprehensive as possible. But it can always be better! If you really want to know everything about Ilford, go to the Photographic Memorabilia site. The amount of information given there is so much that, if I should use it all here, it would be completely out of place compared to information about other companies.
The Photographic Memorabilia’s link is: https://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/index.html.
The Britannia Works Company, picture of the British Journal Photography of June 1888.
A lorry operated by Ilford Limited with the registration plate, F.697. According to the Essex Record Office, F 697 was registered between 1904 and 1906. The lorry is a Foden steam wagon; the two men would have been the driver and the fireman. In front of them is the boiler with what appears to be a steam pressure gauge in front of the smoke stack.
Mr Alfred Hugh Harmann had a photographic studio at 2 Ewell Road in Surbiton, Surrey, from 1867-1879. He was doubtless experimenting with emulsion making during the 1870s and in 1879 gave up printing and concentrated on making dry plates.
While at Surbiton he suddenly left his wife and family, went off with another lady and started manufacturing photographic plates from the basement of his house, ‘Elmhurst”, on the corner of Cranbrook Road and Park Avenue in Ilford, Essex, north east London, UK.
This comprised the cellar and ground floor of the house where with two men and three boys he made dry plates, delivering them daily to London in a horse and trap. The house was demolished in the 1930s to make way for a cinema, which was never built.
Thus, in 1879 Alfred Hugh Harman, as the Britannia Works Company, founded the photographic company, which was to become Ilford Ltd. He expanded by buying other houses in the centre of Ilford and in 1883 the Britannia Works Company acquired the parcel of land bounded on two sides by Clyde Cottages and Grove Terrace and built a special factory for plate manufacture.
In 1885 Harman quarrelled with Marion and Co. of Soho Square, and terminated their agreement. In 1886, he wanted to prevent Marion using the name ‘Britannia’.
Harman lost the lawsuit: Mr Justice Chitty ruled that, as Marion and Co. had registered the mark, they were entitled to use it. Harman reacted to the decision by changing the name of his plates from ‘Britannia’ to ‘Ilford’ and the name Britannia Works to the Britannia Works Company. He also introduced the paddle steamer trademark and reduced his prices.
In 1891 the firm became a limited company and Harman slowly withdrew from activity in the business until in 1898 the company was disposed of for £380,000, Harman thereafter acting as an occasional consultant. He died in 1913, aged 72, leaving £266,000.
The ‘paddle-steamer’ trademark continued in use (slightly modified) for almost 60 years. The application for registration of this paddle steamer trademark is dated 6th October 1897.
Subsequent to WW2 Ilford dropped the paddle steamer trademark and adopted an advertising slogan: “Ilford Films for Faces & Places”. Ilford incorporated this slogan into their camera design. The Ilford Envoy box camera, in the mid-1950s, had its focusing marked: ‘Push-In for Places ~ Pull-Out for Faces’.
When the brand name Ilford was chosen in 1886, its first recognisable logo, or trademark of a paddle steamer, soon appeared on packaging. The simplified version shown here was its last iteration used from 1930. This was replaced by the Sunburst symbol in 1964, along with colour coding for different film speeds, while the familiar, bold lettering, still in use today, first appeared in the 1970s.
The 1900s saw a lot of developments to the photographic company. Firstly being that they officially changed their company’s name to one that we know today- Ilford!
They released their first camera, the Falling Plate magazine cut film camera. The quarter plate ‘box’ camera was advertised as being able to be loaded in less than a minute, which seems a ridiculous selling point nowadays. And it had sufficient film to take 40 exposures before reloading, which is pretty impressive even by today’s standards!
Ilford manufactured a special film with a cardboard backing for the camera. The 1903 & 1904 BJPA gives the price of the camera as £5; a camera price of £5 is equivalent to around £620 in 2020 money!
The Ilford Falling Plate Camera was a simple device, in the shape of a wooden box, used the company’s quarter plates. The camera came with a variety of lenses made by companies like Ross and Bausch & Lomb.
Ilford started to produce roll films in 1912. Selo was a joint venture formed in 1919 between Ilford, Imperial, Illingworth, Gem and APM to manufacture roll film. These companies under their own brand names sold Selo films. Later Selo became a fully-fledged subsidiary of Ilford, the Selo brand name was used by Ilford from around 1930.
Rajar Ltd amalgamated with Ilford around 1928 and Ilford took over the Rajar factory site in Mobberley. It eventually became the sole paper production factory of Ilford Limited and is now the home of Harman Technology trading as Ilford Photo.
Ilford continued to lead the way in advancing film technology, in 1928 they made their first attempt at manufacturing a subtractive type of negative-positive colour ‘tri-pack’ roll film, called Coloursnap film, however the process proved difficult and was wound up in 1930.
In 1935 Ilford began to manufacture a reversal colour film for Dufay-Chromex Ltd. The film had previously only been available in England as 16mm and 9.5 cine film, but with Ilford’s expertise and finance they were able to sell it as 35mm roll film, sheet film and in film pack forms.
The brand continued to introduce lots more films and papers throughout the 40s decade, despite the war. In 1945 the Ilford works were hit in the London Blitz but they endeavoured to continue their work and lectures throughout the war, to keep enthusiasm for photography alive.
This picture shows an artist’s impression of the Rajar factory at Mobberley, taken from the British Journal Almanac (BJA) for 1910.
It seems that this picture dates to the earliest times of the completed Selo factory (1934). The word SELO on the front lawn, prominent from the air, was presumably removed in 1939, at the start of war hostilities.
An Ilford ‘Selo Soldiers’ film advert, probably dating from around 1953. ‘Selo Soldiers’ were used by Ilford to promote ‘Selo’ brand films.
The Witnesss is an advanced 35mm coupled-rangefinder camera made sold between 1951 and 1953. Production difficulties led to less than 350 cameras being made, and the line was scrapped in favor of the Advocate.
An aerial view of the Ilford Australia Pty Ltd, Notting Hill (Waverley), site, around 1986.
As already mentioned, the signature paddle-steamer trademark, used since 1886, was dropped in 1945 and the new advertising slogan “Ilford films, for Faces and Places” was coined.
Prior to this Ilford had used phrases such as “Focus right then gently press: Ilford Selo spells success”. This was widely used in newspaper and magazine adverts of the time and certainly during the latter years of the war.
Ilford released another camera called the Witness in 1948. It was a sophisticated 35mm interchangeable lens rangefinder camera, but it was slow to reach the market for various reasons, including a shortage of high quality lenses. However Ilford continued to release a range of cameras. The witness camera finally reached the mass market but only around 350 units were sold, as it couldn’t compete with the newly released Leica M3 and its own mass production issues.
Ilford continued to release new films, in 1954 the Ilford HPS roll film was launched as “the fastest film in the world”. It was fast panchromatic, 400 ASA in daylight, 320 ASA in tungsten light. The speed revision of 1960 raised the speed to 800 ASA. They re-launched their multigrade paper with some improvements and continued to launch a variety of cameras.
The brand was growing in success and becoming a household name in photography.
In the fifties, Ilford went international, setting up in 1951 a company in Australia, Ilford Australia Pty Ltd. The Australian company was set up in West Melbourne with a staff of about 10. In 1955 the company moved to its current Mount Waverly site.
A new company, Ilford Inc., was formed in the U.S.A. and ICI, who were interested in using its colour dyes in colour photography, made an offer for 35% of the issued share capital in Ilford.
By 1958 ICI acquired 32% of Ilford’s shares and an agreement was made which gave Ilford access to ICI’s film research in the negative positive field and in colour photographic technologies, so they could finally branch out into this field.
Ilford completed a new office block and a new paper finishing and distribution centre was built at Mobberley, resulting in a large increase in the workforce.
On 1959 ICI acquired a majority share holding in Ilford. In 1963 Ciba AG, Switzerland, who had bought Lumière, France the preceding year, and who already owned Swiss photographic coating company Tellko, begin to acquire shares in ILFORD as part of a commercial co-operation between Ciba and ILFORD to develop Ciba’s dye-bleach print material (for making prints directly from colour transparencies). Originally called Cilchrome (‘Cil’ derived from the names Ciba, ILFORD and Lumière) the eventual product name was Cibachrome.
Ciba built a new plant in Marly, Switzerland to coat Cibachrome (renamed ILFOCHROME in 1992 after Ciba withdrew use of their name). The old Tellko factory nearby in the centre of Fribourg was used as the finishing department.
In 1969 Ciba acquired all ICI-shares in ILFORD and became sole owner of ILFORD Limited.
A year later Ciba merged with JR Geigy and became Ciba-Geigy.
In 1983, Ilford’s UK headquarters was moved to Mobberley, Cheshire. In 1989, Ciba-Geigy sells Ilford to USA-based International Paper Company, also owners of graphic arts materials manufacturer Anitec. The two companies were merged in 1990 to become Ilford Anitec. In 1996, the sales and administration offices were also moved from London to Mobberley.
In 1997 Ilford Anitec was sold onto Doughty Hanson & Co a British private equity fund manager and subsequently rebranded ILFORD Imaging Ltd. In 2002 plans were announced to redevelop the original part of the factory (former Rajar works) for housing to release funds to re-invest in the business, with the housing subsequently constructed in 2004–2007.
On 20 August 2004, after earlier that year celebrating 125 years of photographic manufacture, the UK-company (ILFORD Imaging UK Limited) went into receivership with debts of £40m. The Swiss manufacturing site and distribution company was put up for sale as a going concern.
The Oji Paper Company of Japan bought the Swiss part of the company and the plant at Marly in July 2005 and by Paradigm Global Partners LLP in May 2010. It produced inkjet products and high quality colour photographic products under the name Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH before being declared bankrupt on 9 December 2013 resulting in the closure of the Marly plant.
The ‘Ilford Imaging’ brand and trademarks (but not the Marly plant) was subsequently acquired by Australian firm CR Kennedy & Company Pty Ltd and Japan-based Chugai Photo Chemical Company. ILFORD Imaging Europe GmbH now based in Germany re-launched the Galerie range of papers in August 2014. It holds the rights to the ‘ILFORD’ trademark for photographic applications but otherwise has no connection to Ilford Photo.
The Marly site is now ‘Marly Innovation Centre’ with alternate uses found for the original buildings. In 2015, Fotoimpex owners of the ADOX photographic brand and a small scale photographic factory outside Berlin acquired use of the former Ilford Imaging (Ciba Geigy) machine E, medium scale coating line at Marly, with the intention to begin coating ADOX film there in 2018.
The Marly Innovation Center (MIC) is one of the largest technology campuses in Switzerland. The site of the Marly Innovation Center currently hosts 160 companies.
Ciba Marly, Switzerland.
The Ilford factory at Mobberly, Cheshire, 1983.
Ilford Imaging Europe GmbH company, Bergisch Gladbach, at a fair.
All Ilford film and papers are produced at its factory and HQ at Mobberley, Cheshire
Inside Mobberley, Cheshire factory, emulsion-coat-testing.
The UK site was subject to a management buyout by 6 former managers of Ilford Imaging UK Limited, which resulted in the formation of Harman Technology Ltd (named after the founder Alfred Harman) in February 2005. The company now traded as Ilford Photo, producing high quality monochrome photographic products. The Ilford brand was retained by Ilford Imaging Europe GmbH and used under licence by Ilford Photo for its existing film products. To finance the purchase the Mobberley factory site was sold to Isola Investments Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Perviaz Naviede Family Trust with Ilford Photo remaining as tenant.
In 2007, Harman Technology acquired Kentmere Photographic Limited, a manufacturer of photographic paper in Kentmere, Lake District. Production is moved to Mobberley and in 2009 two new classic grain B&W films are added under the Kentmere brand.
Originally designed as a lower priced brand to their Ilford offer to compete in the US market they are now available worldwide with the Kentmere brand particularly aimed at the student market and those new to black and white photography. Harman also contract manufacture similar black and white films for other brands including AgfaPhoto (APX), Rollei (RPX), Oriental (Seagull).
In 2012, the company invested £350,000 in a 35 mm film cassette making plant, bringing production back in house after relying on external suppliers for 50 years to provide longterm surety of supply. The company was also noted as having an 80% share of the black and white photographic market.
In 2014, landowners of the 40-acre Mobberley site submitted a planning application to Cheshire East Council to construct 375 homes on the majority of the site including investment to consolidate Ilford Photo operations onto a smaller 7.5-acre campus within the site. The application was refused and an appeal was made to the planning inspectorate in July 2015. Following a public inquiry in 2016, the appeal was rejected.
On 14 September 2015, ten years on from the original management buy out, Ilford Photo announced that Harman Technology Limited had been acquired by Pemberstone Ventures Limited for an ‘undisclosed amount’.
In May 2018, the company announced a refresh of their existing Ilford film packaging, with Kentmere film packaging refreshed in September 2018. Both sets of packaging now feature a contrasting Harman Technology sub branding. In December 2018, they launched ‘Simplicity’ a new range of B&W development chemicals packed in small sachets designed to process 2×135 or 1×120 format films to improve convenience for new or low volume users.
In 2019 Ilford celebrated its 140th year with a ‘Silver Ticket Competition’ one winning ticket for a factory tour and photographic course being hidden in a 140th anniversary film box and in October the announcement of a number of new products following a teaser campaign on social media. This included Ilford Multigrade V RC Deluxe photographic paper available in Glossy, Pearl and satin finishes, ORTHO PLUS film in 135 and 120 formats, an Ilford and Paterson film processing starter kit and a Harman reusable camera supplied with 2x 35mm Kentmere Pan 400 films.
Pemberstone, a UK based investment company have been tracking the performance of HARMAN technology for some time. Peter Elton, Managing Director of HARMAN technology concurs.“Our new owners will assist us to connect more effectively to a younger generation in the future, and we will prioritise this as our main goal over the next five years.”
To celebrate 140 years since the original ILFORD company was founded, Ilford hided a unique Silver Ticket inside one of their most popular black and white ILFORD films.
The KI Monobar is a 35mm monorail camera, made from 1958 until 1965. It uses standard 135 film cassettes, loaded in a magazine back.
Ilford are probably most famous for their films, such as HP5 and FP4. In 1957 they were advertising HPS film (400) as the fastest film in the world (although in 1960 films were rated as twice their 1959 speed, so we would call it an 800 film).
Ilford sold a number of cameras under its own name but made for it by other manufacturers, starting with a ‘box’ camera in 1902, but most were made in the 1940s and 50s. The Ilford Witness was a rangefinder camera with interchangeable lenses announced in 1947, but not released until 1953 because of manufacturing difficulties.
In the meantime, the simpler Advocate series 1 was released in 1949 and series 2 in 1952. A pre-release Advocate series 1 camera was given to Princess Elizabeth in 1948. It was stolen, but later recovered when it was sent to be repaired. Also released in 1949 was the Craftsman, a twin-lens reflex (TLR) that took 120 or 620 films. Then 1951 saw the Prentice folding camera which also took 120 film.
In 1957, Ilford released the Sportsman, a relabelled West German Dacora Dignette, as a lightly built and cheap 35 mm camera to compete with the better-made and more expensive Kodak Retinette.
In Germany, a comparative Dignette was about half the price of a Retinette, both coming from the Stuttgart – Black Forest area. The Sportsman became a series of camera models produced over the following 10 years.
Finally, in 1958, Ilford released the Monobar, a monorail camera manufactured by Kennedy Instruments, a division of Ilford, with a 35 mm back that resembled the earlier Advocate camera (which KI had also manufactured).
The Monobar allowed the front (lens) and rear (film plane) of the camera to be moved and rotated, bringing the Scheimpflug principle to the 35mm world. The camera was made from 1958 until 1965.
Harman Titan Pinhole Camera Obscura 4×5” Large-Format.
The Range of cameras as provided:
- Ilford Sportsmaster
- Ilford Sprite 35
- Ilford Witness, an advanced 35mm rangefinder camera, today very rare
- Ilford Sprite Rapid Flash
- 35mm “Black&White” disposable cameras
- Ilford Craftsman
- Ilford Envoy
- Ilford Ilfoflex
- Ilford Ilfomatic Compact 25 (Agilux Agimatic)
- Ilford Ilfomatic Universal 50
- Ilford Ilfomatic Universal 50C
- Ilford Ilfomatic Universal Flash
- Ilford Imp
- Ilford Monarch
- Ilford Monorail
- Ilford Pixie
- Ilford Prentice
- Ilford Sporti and Super Sporti series
- Ilford Sportina Rapid series
- Ilford Sportsman 126
- Ilford Sportsman Instant series
- Ilford Sportsman C Instant
- Ilford Sportsman E Instant
- Ilford Sportsman R Instant
- Ilford Sprite 127
- IlfordSprite Rapid Flash
- Harman TiTAN 4×5 – 2011
- Harman TiTAN 8×10 – 2013
- Ilford Obscura Pure pinhole
Ilford Obscura Pure Pinhole camera,
4×5″ format, 87mm focal length.
FOUNDER: Joseph Peter Welker
COMPANY NAME:
192?: Jos-Pe Farben-Photo GmbH
COMPANY ADDRESSES:
192?: Schauenburger Strasse 44, Hamburg; 192?: Munich.
Although Jos-Pe is a relatively small company, its importance is considerable. With the help of their tri-colour camera, they were able to produce colour photos as early as 1924. Long before big companies like Kodak and Agfa were able to do this.
Jos-Pe Farben-Photo GmbH was a camera manufacturer in Hamburg and later in Munich. The company was named after the first initials of Joseph Peter Welker, the company’s principal owner. It is only known for this one camera model, a metal-bodied plate camera for “one-shot” color separation photography. All of these historical cameras can still be found in photo museums.
Such special three-color cameras, which were mainly used in American studios until the late 1940s, were replaced with the introduction of multi-layer color films. In 1936, these were initially only available as 35mm films with Kodachrome and Agfacolor. Only the Kodachrome Professional sheet films supplied by Kodak between 1938 and 1951 were intended for large format recordings. They were finally replaced from 1946 by the second generation of color slide film released by Kodak.
The Jos-Pe camera included a so-called suction process or Jos-Pe process for producing color images. This process was patented by Gustav Koppmann in 1923. This is an early color process for color photographs on gelatine paper. The Jos-Pe process was offered between 1923 and 1943 by the company of the same name in Hamburg, and later also in Munich, for professional and amateur photographers. The bombing of Hamburg in World War II brought the laboratory to an end.
Publisher JosPé has had picture postcards made from all over the Netherlands. Joseph Peter Welker registered the name JosPé in the commercial register in Hamburg in 1924.
A year later, a Dutch branch was opened in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, on the Arnhem Koningstraat under the name “Handelsvennootschap JosPé Kleurenfoto” which from the outset focused on the then very active picture postcard market. In 1930, a new accommodation was taken into use on the Kerkstraat in Arnhem. A few years later there was no longer a German company and the addition “Kleurenfoto” was dropped from the company name.
Many thousands of picture postcards of places in the Netherlands have been produced by JosPé under his own name, recognizable by the logo “JP” on the card. JosPé employed his own photographers, but local photographers were also used. In practice, a photographer was sent out to take pictures. He visited all kinds of interesting locations. Only a few of the photos taken made it into postcards, which were sold by local entrepreneurs; they then acted as publishers.
In the 1970s the company became increasingly difficult and in 1978 a bankruptcy followed. A restart was unsuccessful. Another restart has been made with yet another bankruptcy.
JosPé’s company archive from before 1945 was lost during the war years. The post-1945 collection was not always handled with care. After the bankruptcies, material was offered for sale to various archives. Unfortunately, plans to digitize the collection were never implemented.
Sending a postcard to the home front when you are on vacation is still a fixed ritual. There used to be a good chance that the picture postcard in question of a Dutch city was printed and published by the company JosPé. Above are four postcards from the Jos-Pe range.
Front view, side view and back view of the Jos-Pe three-color camera.
According to everything that can be found on the internet about this absolute rarity, the Jos-Pe three-color camera should be a very rare and therefore valuable camera.
According to the textbook author James Cornwall, no more than 1,500 of these tri-color cameras for the plate formats 4.5 x 6 cm and 9 x 12 cm were manufactured between 1924 and 1934 or 1936.
With such special cameras, three black-and-white negatives were made simultaneously, each recording one of the three additive primary colors. Two internal beam splitters directed the image to three separate plate holders, each one with either blue, green or red filter.
It had an uncommon focusing system by moving all three plates back and forth simultaneously with a radial focusing control at the front of the camera. This focusing method avoids some problems of sharpness, and of accuracy of the proportions into which the light is split by the internal beam-splitting system, if the lens is moved relative to that system.
The camera has the proud dimensions of 39 x 19 x 25 cm (width x height x depth). The housing is made of cast iron and weighs over 9 kilograms.
The tripod thread is correspondingly large and stable and anchored in the base plate. The standard lens (for the 4.5×6 cm camera) is usually a 10.5 cm f/2.5 Steinheil Anastigmat Quinar, in a dial-set Compound shutter with speeds 1 – 1/100 second, plus ‘B’ and ‘T’.