EXAKTA Guide Reference guide

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CRITIQUE OF THE EXAKTA oe -
During the last two decades camera designers made three
basic contributions towards photographic progress: 1925
saw the advent of the range-finder focused camera for
35 mm, film (Leica); 1930 the twin-lens reflex camera
(Rolleifiex) appeared; 1933 brought the single-lens miniature
reflex (Exakto).

Nothing is ever a hundred per cent. new under the sun.
The Leica was clearly based on ideas inspired by cine-
matography. The Rolleiflex was arrived at by turnin;
stereoscopic camera into an upright structure. The Exakta
Is Just the "streamlined" version of the older reflex
principle.

Both the advantages and the limitations of that design
have long been known,

The chief point of its strength undoubtedly Is that the
lens taking the picture on the plate or film also serves for
viewing and focusing it on a glass screen. Sensitive material
and focusing screen are at equal distances from the lens,
though at a right angle with each other. A mirror that can
be swung into the path of the light coming from the lens
will reflect—hence the name “reflex”’—the picture on to
the screen or clear the way for making an exposure on the
sensitive emulsion. Whatever lens we use and whatever be
our distance from the subject, the area, the relative brightness
and the definition of the picture on the viewing screen will be
strictly the same as that actually taken on the film or plate.

There is far from being anything so simple in other
designs for hand cameras. There the taking apparatus and
the viewing-focusing device are always essentially independ-
ent units more or less efficiently coupled with each other.
Thus if interchangeability of a set of taking lenses is desired
—and the range of any camera Is defined by the range of
Its lenses—the viewing-focusing device, too, will have to
be made interchangeable or at least adjustable within
equally wide limits. This either leads to restrictions in the
scope of the optical equipment—as is the case with the twin- 5

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