I have a tendency to find and buy cameras I wasn’t even looking for, and one of the latest examples is a classic: an Ihagee Exakta Varex IIa, known in some markets (including the USA) as the VX IIa. But I had dropped into Englewood Camera, my local shop, in late August 2020 for the first time since the pandemic hit in March. As always, I peeked at their used gear case, and there it was, calling my name, for the reasonable price of US$95. Needless to say, it followed me home — and man, am I glad it did.
What follows is one of the longer reviews I’ve ever written for this site, primarily because my example of this camera has presented a number of challenges that, over the months that I’ve owned it, have truly tested my resolve. It’s not the camera’s fault; it is, however, a testament to the challenges of owning, using and servicing vintage film cameras. But let’s start with the back story.
The Back Story
Continuing from above now, considering that the revered Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 lens on this camera (mine is the 12-blade aperture version) often sells for more than double what I paid for it and the camera combined, it all felt like a reasonably good deal; more like, “Buy this lens and get a camera body for free.” The lens barrel is made of aluminum, and as such is prone to having some slight surface oxidation, and with the comparative softness of the metal, has its share of the usual tiny nicks and scratches here and there.
As for the camera body, I was really pleased that it was in near-mint condition, showing few signs of use, let alone signs of actual wear. The only exception? There was a small dent in the pentaprism’s metal shell. It hadn’t appeared to affect anything, so I accepted that as it was, deciding that I might try and work the dent out on my workbench. (As it turns out, that dent should have been concerning. I discovered later that it wasn’t the only evidence that this camera has taken a fall, but more on that later.)
Disassembling the pentaprism ended-up being a good idea in general, because it made it particularly easy to clean everything well, including the eyepiece window. The focusing screen is in the pentaprism assembly, and given that it’s made of glass on this camera, it was possible to give it a good (but very careful) cleaning — which it did need. I also managed to work the dent out of the shell for the most part, but ended-up finding an undented replacement part at a reasonable price on eBay, which truly made the camera like-new.
Perhaps the only true operational issue with the camera was the fact that the lens focusing ring was pretty stiff — stiff enough that it made the camera sort of difficult to operate. Initially I decided to try and ignore it, and to try and address the lens’s cosmetics, since that was something within my skillset. As I mentioned earlier, the lens barrel badly needed a good polishing, and a Dremel tool with a felt pad and a tiny bit of metal polish made pretty quick and very effective work of that. I’ve never owned a lens with a bright metal barrel before, but I have to say, after polishing, it is indeed incredibly handsome with its gleaming finish, and it’s easy to overlook the small signs of its 65 years or so of use.
Next up was to find a case for the camera; its unusual shape and size made it hard to put in one of my multi-use hard cases with the camera body and lens assembled, and lacking the body and rear lens caps, I couldn’t really separate the lens from the camera body to make that easier. Thankfully, cases are pretty easy to find, and I tracked down an inexpensive example that had great bones, just lots of scuffing on the leather. Some leather dyeing and polish took care of that with ease, and the plastic nose cone of the case was brought back to life with Novus No. 3 and No. 2 plastic scratch compounds and some elbow grease, then polished with Novus No. 1.
The bottom line: For a pretty modest outlay of cash, I ended-up with what appeared to be a stunningly beautiful, fully functional camera, equipped with a smooth, beautiful and renowned lens, wrapped in a like-new leather case to carry it around in. I use the phrase “appeared to be” quite intentionally — as we’ll discover later.
The Company
Ihagee Kamerawerk, the German company who made the Exakta, has an interesting history. The company was originally started in 1912, owned (and having been founded by) by Johan Steenbergen, a Dutchman, in Dresden, Germany.
The company produced a great many models, and experienced a great deal of success, but the Exakta for which the company is primarily known was launched in 1936 as the “Kine Exakta” for the fact that it used 35mm “cinema” (hence, “kine”) film. As the very first commercially viable, commercially successful 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, it was (and is) historically significant.
The 1930s were perhaps not the most auspicious period in German history, given the ascent of Adolf Hitler to power. And once World War II started, the Ihagee factory was subsumed into the German war machine (along with Kodak AG, Schneider, Zeiss Ikon, half of Carl Zeiss, and many other renowned German camera and optics companies).
The Ihagee factory reportedly didn’t fare particularly well in the war; references say that it was all but destroyed by Allied bombing. Then, post-war, Dresden found itself in the Soviet occupation zone, ending-up in what would eventually be communist East Germany, with Steenbergen effectively stripped of his ownership. That didn’t stop his former company from starting-up camera production once again, in a rather unusual arrangement with the new Soviet-backed government.
Indeed, the post-war period was complicated for the company, and if you’d like to read more about it, I can suggest the following; the UK-based Exakta Circle is a club for Exakta enthusiasts, and one of its members, Peter Longden, prepared a really well-researched e-book on the history of Ihagee and the Exakta which you can find here. It is a really deep dive, very detailed, very thorough, that traces the history of both the company, and its cameras. It truly is interesting reading for those curious enough to dig so deeply into the subject.
Perhaps it was the complicated legal status of the post-war Ihagee that allowed the Exakta to become a somewhat unusual example of a consumer product being exported out of the eastern bloc, into the west. That said, and while I’m not a terribly keen student of history, it does strike me as a bit surprising that the Exakta was imported into and sold in the US, given our McCarthyism of the time, and the so-called “Second Red Scare.”
The March 6, 1956 edition of The New York Times had a small news piece with the headline, “Americans Buy Reds’ Cameras,” so I’m clearly not the only one who made the connection. (“Reds” for those who are not students of history is a derogatory term for communists that was a favorite of the US during the Cold War.) The piece stated that Americans had ordered 24,000 Varex cameras at that year’s Leipzig trade fair.
In any event, a simple web search will turn-up lots of interesting tidbits on Ihagee, and the Exakta, and there are a few specific things I can recommend.
First, if you’re looking for a catalog of the the various Exakta models with differences and details, then Exakta Cameras 1933 – 1978 by Clément Aguila and Michel Rouah seems to be the definitive book on the subject. With plentiful photos and descriptions, it’s interesting on many levels, but it’s essentially little more than an annotated catalog of the cameras with notes on changes over time.
Second, definitely check out Andrzej Wrotniak’s web site, a link for which is on our Enthusiast Sites list. He digs-in much more deeply not just on the camera models, but accessories, lenses, history and context that can get you sucked-in and lost for hours absorbing it all. There are multiple Exakta enthusiast sites, but Andrzej’s is (in my opinion) the most comprehensive and well-assembled.
Lastly, Werner Wurst, a long-time Ihagee employee who was reportedly responsible for writing all of the company’s advertising, owner’s manuals and other literature was also the author of what (in the English translation) is titled, Exakta Manual. Its extremely formal midcentury UK English translation from the original German makes the book a somewhat challenging read in parts, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more detailed tome on the Exakta. Wurst’s personal connection to the company is in evidence; parts of the book read more like promotional literature than an informational book, but it’s worth putting-up with that for the other exceptionally in-depth information you’ll find. As with any vintage midcentury photography book, some things have changed (film and film speeds, for one), but much of it still applies.
The Camera
Shifting now from the company to the camera, the Varex line of Exakta cameras emerged in 1950. Due to trademark issues, “Varex” couldn’t be used in the United States; apparently Argus already owned the name. As a result, the Exakta Varex was referred to as the Exakta V in the US, making it appear as if it was to be a Roman numeral five. (It wasn’t.) The name “Varex” sort of implies variability, and it was likely a reference to the key difference between the Varex and earlier Exaktas: an interchangeable viewfinder. It was the first in a series:
- 1950-51: Exakta Varex (Exakta V in the USA)
- 1951-57: Exakta Varex VX (Exakta VX in the USA)
- 1957-63: Exakta Varex IIa (Exakta VX IIa in the USA)
- 1963-67: Exakta Varex IIb (Exakta VX IIb in the USA)
- 1967-69: Exakta VX1000
- 1969-70: Exakta VX500
The VX500 was the very last of the original Exakta cameras. Those produced afterward were relabeled versions of other GDR (East German) cameras that were manufactured by VEB Pentacon, a company that was an amalgamation of the various formerly independent producers of cameras and lenses in East Germany.
My camera, the Varex IIa, was made in four distinct iterations according to Wrotniak (although Aguila and Rouah mention five). There are multiple taxonomies for these cameras, but using Wrotniak’s “star notation” for the versions, and other sources for dates and quantities, they are:
- 5.1.1 (Made November 1956 to October 1957 • 27,790 units produced)
- 5.1.2 (Made November 1957 to May 1958 • 17,395 units produced)
- 5.1.3 (Made May 1958 to September 1960 • 71,140 units produced)
- 5.2 (Made September 1960 to August 1963 • 65,620 units produced)
All are otherwise generically referred to as “Exakta Varex IIa” cameras, but they do not actually have an identical outward appearance. My particular example is relatively early in the serial number series for the earliest version (5.1.1), placing its manufacture sometime in late 1956 or perhaps very early 1957. The Aguila/Rouah book calls mine a “Varex IIa Version 1,” and refers to the year of introduction as 1957. Indeed, it wasn’t until the May 1957 issue of Popular Photography that the model was first mentioned in that publication’s editorial coverage.
As a brief aside, in that same issue, retailer advertisements didn’t yet mentioned the VX IIa. But its predecessor, the VX, was priced at around US$258 for a full outfit with lens, case and other standard accessories. Adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent of over US$2,400 in today’s money — not exactly inexpensive.
One can reasonably assume that my camera wasn’t originally sold in the USA. First, it is labeled Varex IIa, instead of VX IIa. Of course, the front plate can easily be replaced, so that alone doesn’t prove much. Second, its Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar lens has a focus distance scale in meters, not feet, and it also bears no 1Q mark despite having twelve aperture blades (see below for more on all that). However, that too is not hard-and-fast proof. Finally, the tripod socket on the bottom has the larger 3/8-16 threads, generally associated with European-made cameras of that era. All of that combines to give the appearance that the camera came to the US by some means other than through a US retailer.
The Viewfinder
One oddity of my camera is that is has what Wrotniak refers to as a “P.3” prism finder, which started showing-up in 1960, a few years after this camera was made. Additionally, the Biotar lens on the camera is of the preset aperture type, and it seems somewhat logical it might have had a semi-automatic lens given the year it was made. But when you have a “system” camera like this, the entire point is to be able to mix-and-match. (Back to the Varex name, and the implication of variability.) It’s anyone’s guess whether the Biotar came with the camera when purchased, or when the later pentaprism was swapped onto the body.
Speaking of viewfinders, in reading the owner’s manual for the camera, I began to really want to make this camera “whole” by finding a waist-level finder of the type it would originally have come with. I’ve never used a waist-level finder with a 35mm camera — I’d never even heard of such a thing — and it struck me as incredibly odd.
Regardless, it was pretty easy to find one on eBay with a case to store it in, so I grabbed it. As someone who prefers a waist-level finder to other types on my medium format cameras, I find it natural to use one on the Exakta. Natural, perhaps, but weird; it’s not a flat ground glass as such — it’s a magnifying lens with a ground bottom surface. It ends-up being surprisingly bright, just incredibly strange-feeling. Because it’s a magnifying glass and not a flat ground glass like on a TLR (twin-lens reflex) camera like the Rolleiflex, it can be a little challenging to see it clearly. Then again, I’m far sighted, so I am, admittedly, “viewfinder challenged” under the best of circumstances.
Because the bottom surface of the glass of both viewfinder types is completely unprotected, they are subject to rubbing and scratching when they’re not in the camera. My prism’s focusing screen was in great shape (merely dirty), but the waist-level finders I saw on eBay were all showing marks and marring on the bottom, including the one I purchased. I used some Novus No. 3 heavy scratch removal compound on it; it’s actually intended for scratches in plastics, but the abrasive is very fine, and seemed a good choice. It turns out that it was; virtually all the marks vanished, and the image is clear and crisp in-use. (That suggests that the marks were quite superficial; something like silicon carbide powder would have been required to smooth anything very substantive.)
The Lenses
Ihagee itself did not manufacture lenses, but there were a great many lenses made for the Exakta cameras by manufacturers both in the east and the west, and there is no specific “default” lens. Wrotniak (mentioned earlier) has a very comprehensive discussion of Exakta lenses that’s a really instructive read, and it names many of the numerous makers, including Zeiss Jena, Schneider, Meyer-Optik, Kilfitt, Rodenstock and Steinheil — among others.
As with any 35mm camera, something in the neighborhood of 50mm would be considered a standard lens, and as I mentioned earlier, my camera came equipped with the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar with an unusual (to me, anyway) 58mm focal length, which I’ll dig into some detail on here.
For those who may not know, Carl Zeiss Jena was the part of the Carl Zeiss enterprise that was cleaved-off from the rest of the company after World War II. The city of Jena was in the Soviet occupation zone, subsequently becoming part of communist East Germany, and the Zeiss operations there became a separate entity from the West German Carl Zeiss. The two operated in parallel, and tussled over the Carl Zeiss trademark for years. Interestingly, the two were eventually rejoined in the 1990s after the Berlin Wall fell. The BBC World Service had a great story about Zeiss and its corporate reunification in their program Discovery. Listen to that episode here.
I’ve already given a lot of detail on the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar lens that came with my camera, but in just a couple of rolls, I’ve really fallen for the images it produces, particularly the ones taken close-up, with a narrow depth-of-field. The bokeh almost seems to have an element of movement to it. The look of these shots may not appeal to everyone, and I suppose you could argue that the “look” is actually the result of design deficiencies — or at least some sort of testament to lens design history. You wouldn’t mistake the images for the Carl Zeiss CF T* lenses of my Hasselblad, but that’s really an apples to pomegranates comparison; they’re both red, and both fruit, but that’s where the similarities end.
My particular Biotar seems a little unusual in that it does have the supposedly desirable 12-blade aperture, which makes out-of-focus points of light in a shot circular in shape, rather than geometric as they are on newer lenses with the more common 5- or 6-blade apertures.
Additionally, it does have the “T” coating, but there is no 1Q (“first quality”) marking on the lens — the marking normally found on East German camera products for export. (The marking is on the camera, however; it’s stamped into the bottom leatherette.)
Photographer Cheyenne Morrison reviewed this same lens. Morrison had a lot to say about them, and it was a fascinating, and in-depth read on their qualities, types, and versions.
Morrison says of the preset version of the Biotar, like mine, “It comes mostly with ten aperture blades, but occasionally comes with twelve. Obviously the twelve blade version is more sought after.” Morrison goes on to note that the 12-blade version has the 1Q mark — but mine does not. It all makes me curious about its origins.
In any case, as I said earlier, oddly, my camera has a preset aperture Biotar. I’ve never had a lens with this “preset” feature, but it’s easy to use. Many of us take for granted how modern lenses and cameras work, allowing us to easily preview the image with the aperture wide open so the view is as bright as possible, while they automatically close to the selected f-stop when you take the shot, then open-up again. That’s not how it works on the Exakta; it’s more akin to how the lenses on a large format view camera work, and what I’m accustomed to on my own Horseman L45 view camera, or my Graflex Crown Graphic: On a fully manual lens, you open the aperture all the way for viewing and composing, and then set it (stopping it down) for taking the photograph — all manually.
The preset lenses are an improvement from that, and they allow you to set the aperture as desired, and lock it in. Then, when viewing and composing your shot, you can with one hand move the aperture between the preset position, and fully open. The semi-automatic and automatic versions make it easier by linking a mechanism to the shutter button. In the semi-automatic types, the mechanism must be cocked manually with a lever at the base of the lens barrel. In the automatic types, a mechanism (there are two variations of it) will stop the lens down and then bring it back full open afterward without having to be cocked or wound — providing the functional equivalent of a modern lens aperture interlock, but one that’s fully self-contained in the lens.
Incidentally, you can identity semi-automatic and automatic types by the large protrusion on the side of the lens near the mount end.
Much to my surprise, lenses for the Exakta seem to have retained a lot of their value in many cases, and seem expensive compared to the lens shopping I’ve done for Minolta, Pentax and other more modern SLRs. Much of that seems to be owing to the properties of the lenses and how they perform, with many adapting them to modern digital cameras.
One lens I found also seemed quite intriguing, and quite affordable — enough so that I had to pick it up: the Kamerabau-Anstalt-Vaduz Kilfitt-Makro-Kilar E 40mm f/3.5. That’s quite the name.
Kamerabau-Anstalt-Vaduz was the name of a short-lived lens manufacturer based in Lichtenstein. Kilfitt is Heinz Kilfitt, a German designer who is well-known in some circles for the Makro-Kilar design that this very lens uses. The lens is unique in that it has a wide-travel helicoid design that allows the lens elements to expand much farther apart than most SLR lenses, providing a focus range of infinity with a semi-wide 40mm (it’s labeled 40mm, but it’s technically 42mm) focal length, all the way up to just a couple of inches from the front of the lens. The ability to do close-ups with no auxiliary lenses, extension tubes, or anything else is a big plus, but having that ability as a mere part of the overall focus “throw” of the lens itself makes it an extremely versatile lens to keep on the front of the camera for the majority of one’s routine photographic needs. And if I didn’t love the Zeiss Jena Biotar so much, I very likely would do exactly that.
The third lens I have for my Exakta is a Schneider-Kreuznach 360mm f/5.5 Tele-Xenar. Long focal length lenses are not something most of us use regularly, and 360mm is a pretty long focal length as 35mm cameras go. I’m not certain why I chose to purchase this lens, to be candid; it was combination of its affordable price and good condition, I suppose, along with a commitment to myself that I’d make it a point to go out with this monster of a lens, and only that lens, from time-to-time.
That is, however, unlikely; the lens simply doesn’t perform that well. I’ve yet to really experiment much with aperture settings and results as I write this, but at f/11 at least, it’s sharp in the center and falls-off very rapidly to the outer parts of the image. The lens goes down to f/32, and I’m guessing it would produce better results stopped down more. Of course, that means the shutter speed would have to be much slower, limiting the use cases for the lens.
Finally, I also acquired a Telisar 135mm f/4.5 lens for the camera. Telisar is a bit of an enigma, and so frankly is the lens itself. Many listings for what appears to be the same lens are actually unbranded, and there’s been speculation that the lens was made by Rodenstock, with the Telisar branding intended to represent a lower-cost lens tier. In truth, I don’t know — perhaps no one does — but the lens seems to perform reasonably well in any case.
The Shutter
From what I’ve read online, the fabric shutter curtains of the Exakta can be a real issue, and nearly always need replacement after this much time. Because the shutter appeared to operate correctly and provided accurate exposures at all speeds in my testing, I was confident that the shutter curtain was fine. Unfortunately, my limited assessment criteria, lack of experience with such things and my initial conclusion about it proved quite premature; more on that shortly. I also had no real idea about how it would manifest itself; owning vintage cameras can involve a lot of on-the-job education.
In terms of the operation of the shutter, the one in the Varex IIa operates up to a speedy 1/1000th of a second, and test photos taken at full speed revealed that it seems both accurate and fully operational.
But while the shutter itself is a typical enough design, controlling that shutter is anything but typical: The Exakta Varex IIa (and other Exaktas too) have not one, but two shutter speed dials.
The dial on the left (when viewed from the photographer’s perspective) is the primary one. Speed options on this camera include: B (bulb), T (time), 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/150, 1/250, 1/500, and 1/1000.
The dial on the right is for longer exposures, as well as delayed shutter action (self-timer) situations. On one hand, I understand why it’s separate; there’s a wind-up clockwork mechanism with the right dial. But the multi-purpose nature of the right dial gets to be quite confusing, because both dials (left and right) are used in concert depending on what you want. The owner’s manual lays it out, and the problem is that I have to refer to it every single time I take a shot that doesn’t use one of the simple settings (what the manual calls “instantaneous exposures”).
Here are the permutations for the record:
- Instantaneous Exposures 1/25 to 1/1000 Seconds
Set the left dial to the desired shutter speed. - Long Exposures with Bulb or Time
Set the left dial to B or T, and use them as is customary (B is press-and-hold, T is press-on/press-off). - Long Instant and Short Timed Exposures 1/5 to 12 Seconds
Set the left dial to B or T, wind the right dial, set the right dial to the desired shutter speed with the black numbers. - Self-Timer for Exposures from 1/25 to 1/1000 Seconds
Set the left dial to the desired shutter speed, wind the right dial, set the right dial to any of the red numbers. The self-timer is approximately 13 seconds long. - Self-Timer for Exposures from 1/5 to 6 Seconds
Set the left dial to B or T, wind the right dial, set the right dial to the desired shutter speed with the red numbers. The self-timer is approximately 13 seconds long.
Still with me? Yeah. That’s why I have to keep referring to the manual; if this was the only film camera I owned, I’d eventually get used to this and memorize the procedure. But considering that it’s so unlike anything else I own or have used? I’ll just keep referring to the manual.
If you were reading carefully, you’d surely observe something interesting about those numbers above: You can do exposures up to 12 seconds (6 seconds with the self-timer). The camera has no fewer than 18 different settable speeds — 20 if you include B and T, and 27 if you also include the ones specific to the self-timer. That’s far more flexibility than I’ve observed on any other camera, with the possible exception of “in-between” settings sometimes chosen by modern, electronic, fully automatic cameras.
The Other Weirdness
The shutter speed controls are not the only oddity with the Exakta; equally strange is the fact that there are not one, not two, but three PC flash sync ports on the front panel of the camera body. (You can see them in the picture of the Makro-Kilar lens, above.) Honestly, I’ve just never seen anything like it; one wonders why there isn’t just one port and a switch to change the sync setting like pretty much every other camera I’ve ever seen. But there they are, all three, labeled and functioning as follows:
- M Contact
Medium-speed flash bulbs; closes about 15 milliseconds before the shutter opens for long duration flash bulbs. - F Contact
Fast-speed flash bulbs; loses about 11 milliseconds before the shutter is fully open, for small, short-burning flash bulbs. - X Contact
Xenon (electronic) flash; for flash bulbs with a duration of 1/5 second or longer, and electronic flashes.
Obviously only the X contact is relevant today, and if using an electronic flash, you can set the shutter speed to 1/50 or slower, roughly the same as most cameras with a focal plane shutter.
But, the weirdness goes on. Also strange:
- The shutter release is on the front of the camera body on the photographer’s left side, meaning you trigger it with your left hand.
- The film advance lever is also on the left side of the camera — backward from most 35mm cameras.
- Unsurprisingly, the take-up spool for the film is also on the left side of the camera, upside-down from most (but certainly not all) 35mm cameras.
It truly feels like the camera designer for the Exakta was, quite simply, left-handed, and designing the camera in this way was simply a natural thing to do. The Exakta was designed by a team led by Karl Nüchterlein, Ihagee’s chief designer; whether he was left-handed is a mystery, but it’s an oddity that persisted through all the Exaktas.
The Issues
Once I got to using the Exakta, and getting some film processed, it was abundantly clear from both the use, and the results, that not everything was perfect in paradise; the stiff focus of the lens became hard to ignore, and the dreaded rumors about shutter curtains were indeed true in my camera.
The Stiff Focus
It became obvious that I had to address the stiff focus. The camera was actually fairly difficult to use because of it, something I chose to ignore at first, but then became rather hard not to since I had to hold the camera quite firmly in order to turn the focus ring. Taking a picture became a multi-step, back-and-forth affair of adjusting the focus, checking the composition, adjusting the focus, checking the… You get the idea. Something had to be done.
The (Holey!) Shutter Curtain
One of my biggest concerns came when I saw the images from my first roll of film after scanning. Numerous (but not all) shots exhibited peculiar blotches of light that I’ve never seen before in any of my cameras:
I incorrectly concluded that these must certainly have been some sort of light flaring from bubbles or debris in the optics, not even thinking clearly that such issues rarely affect image quality in such a specific and obvious way. That conclusion seems horribly naïve now, in retrospect, but I just couldn’t envisage any other source, and assumed that I just needed a lens shade, and all would be well. One very, very important clue that I missed was that the pattern of blotches was the same (or very similar) on all the images that exhibited the issue. That should have been a red flag, but alas, was not.
In showing some samples to Paul Barden (an experienced film photographer, and the camera tech who services my Kodak Retina cameras), he reminded me that the optics wouldn’t likely be responsible for this, and went on to educate me a bit about the effect of lens defects on images. But the bottom line is that a lens can be in pretty crappy condition, with scratches, bubbles, coating flaws, and other issues — and still allow a camera to capture a great image.
Paul suggested a light leak, and I began to investigate that. Not 20 minutes into my analysis, I had a Eureka moment: The fabric shutter curtain of the camera was in fact the source of my issue.
The thing is, after releasing the shutter in the Exakta, the mirror stays up until the film is advanced. During this period of time, any light entering the lens is blocked from the film solely by the fabric of the shutter curtain. When that curtain has pinholes in it from age? Well, mystery solved; it was obvious the moment I shined a light into the front of the lens while observing the closed curtain from the back. My shutter curtain may have functioned properly in the general sense, but the decades had taken a toll on the integrity of the fabric. It’s clear in retrospect that the variation in the blotches (in terms of intensity) was due to light conditions during shooting, whether I’d advanced the film right after the shot or not, and other factors. But the curtain? It needed replacement regardless.
I’ll talk more about the repairs below.
The Mirror Damper
If the focus stiffness and shutter curtain weren’t enough, the mirror damper seal began to come loose, hanging slightly into the camera body. It was now time to deal with all of this.
The Repairs
My repair journey began with the lens. In fact, when I began to address the issue, I hadn’t yet figured-out the shutter curtain as the source of the light leaks.
Finding repair technicians for film camera gear is difficult in general, but it seems very few people have any interest in tackling a lens. After a couple of weeks spent trying to identify someone, I reluctantly decided to try and tackle the job myself — not that I’ve ever disassembled a camera lens before. I did find a YouTube tutorial from Retro Foto House for the exact lens I have, and it appeared to be relatively straightforward.
Now, in truth, I don’t think watching a YouTube video a couple of times qualifies anyone to do much of anything (me included), but I decided to order some helicoid grease and a set of large tweezers of the type that the guy in the video bent and used to unscrew the retaining ring inside the end of the lens that allows the focusing and optical groups to come apart. And on a recent morning, I dug into the job.
The separation of the two groups was pretty simple, as was the cleaning and lubrication of the lens helicoid. But when it came time to reassemble the lens, I really struggled. And struggled. And struggled.
After awhile, I was able to proclaim victory — or so I thought. It turns out that my declaration was premature; when I went to use the lens, I discovered that the infinity focus wasn’t correct; the image was blurry when at infinity. To be honest, it didn’t look like the applicable part of the focusing group was getting seated as tightly as it should have when I was putting it back together, and clearly, I was right. So, the next morning, it was back to the drawing board.
Instead of blindly following the video, I decided to carefully examine exactly how the threaded parts went together. Knowing that the issues resulted from the two parts not seating properly, which in turn prevented the optical group from getting close enough to the camera body to focus at infinity, I homed-in on the problem; the lens helicoid threads have several potential starting points for joining the two parts involved (i.e., there are multiple parallel threads along the helicoid), and I simply needed to join the threads at a slightly different entry point. The video wasn’t especially clear on this; the method they used for marking the point that two pieces of the focusing group come apart was supposed to ensure alignment, but I’m not sure I completely understood their technique at the time of disassembly, and it was equally unclear upon initial reassembly.
With the specifics of the design and the way they go together then understood, it took numerous attempts to finally get the parts back together in the proper alignment. I did get it done properly in the end, and the functionality of the lens was fully restored — including a focus ring that glides like new, all in that newly-gleaming barrel.
Oh, and the video? You can watch it here. My sincere thanks to Retro Foto House for making it available; it was truly a godsend.
As for the shutter curtain? Well, getting a shutter curtain replaced on a vintage camera isn’t exactly something you can get done just anywhere, and the options at my disposal were quite limited. After doing a considerable amount of web research, I learned that servicing these cameras isn’t that complicated, and there are step-by-step guides readily available (for a price) to help. As for the shutter curtains, well, about the only place that has newly-made Exakta shutter curtains is a shop in New York, which I’ll choose not to name. I called them; during the conversation, they offered that they can perform the replacement, so after some thought, I packed-up the camera and sent it off with a note after pointing-out the need to address the mirror damper while they had the camera.
The shop I used is one I was familiar with from eBay listings, primarily, and appears to operate under more than one name. It was impossible to find the name of the actual legal entity for the company (I tried), which should have been a red flag, but wasn’t. The internet seems to have a lot of folks saying a lot of things about the firm, both good and bad; another red flag that didn’t register. Their web sites don’t instill tons of confidence, and they seem to prefer to conduct business by phone, rather than email, which should also have been a red flag of sorts. But missing all the small signals, I went ahead.
The camera’s reflex mirror left home intact, but after the camera arrived, the shop told me it was cracked when it arrived there. It almost felt like a hustle at first, to be honest, but I had no basis upon which to question them, and the replacement was inexpensive, so they added that to the list. The company told me that the Exakta repairs are actually farmed-out, ostensibly to a German gentleman who’s been working on the cameras for years. It makes a good story, I suppose. Turnaround time was several weeks, but eventually the camera did make it back home.
While it was away, it got its mirror replacement, the shutter curtain replacement, the mirror damper was reglued and the camera was supposedly CLA’ed as well. Regrettably, however, it wasn’t 100%; the mirror needed adjustment since it wasn’t possible to focus at infinity with either of my lenses. So, back to New York, and another few weeks away from home. While I verified with the shop that the camera had arrived, I didn’t hear anything further until I received a shipping notification that it was on its way back.
When it arrived back home in late January 2021, I was quickly reminded why I fell in love with this camera. Yes, the mirror was fresh, crisp and clean. The shutter curtain worked and was light-tight. The mechanisms seemed smooth. But now my beautiful looking camera was a beautifully functioning camera as well — or so it appeared for about 15 exposures or so. The camera’s shutter curtain started to remain partially open after the occasional shot, ruining the shot itself, and casting so much light on the film, it damaged adjacent frames too. At this point, honestly, this camera was beginning to test my patience, but moreover, I’d completely lost confidence in the shop in New York; enough red flags had piled-up that I no longer trusted them.
So, I set about finding a different camera tech to take a fresh look, and after weeks of web searches and scanning of online forums, a camera repair shop in Texas is where I ended-up. The owner and tech has a long background in repairs and familiarity with the Exakta. His work backlog was somewhat long — the curse of many camera techs. But after a whopping three and a half months, when he got to my camera, the news wasn’t great. Bottom line: It cannot be economically repaired.
But, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I wasn’t ready to give-up on this camera. In the fall of 2021, a reader of the website had brought a small shop in Germany to my attention to add to the Vendor Directory, and I decided to dig a little deeper.
And so, in December 2021, I contacted Andrea Schönfelder, a third generation camera technician at Foto Service Olbrich in Görlitz — home of the old Meyer Optik, in the former East Germany. Frau Schönfelder specializes in repairs of East German cameras including the Exakta and Werra, comes very highly recommended and very highly reviewed. I sent it off with the hope that she has access to scarce parts or donor cameras, and paired with her deep expertise, could save my Exakta.
By early January 2022, my camera had arrived, and Frau Schönfelder replied with a repair estimate. In addition to a bent part that needs to be replaced (she indicated that the camera likely had been dropped at some point to cause the issue), she pointed-out that the shutter curtain itself was poor, was improperly installed, and that it needed to be replaced — again — and that another part of the mechanism had been improperly installed. She would need to make those corrections, and make repairs to the shutter as a whole and to the transport, and then perform a CLA (since the shop in New York charged me for one, but had done nothing). But — the camera was reparable, and I authorized the work.
Finally, at a point when I assumed this camera couldn’t be repaired, I decided to buy a second Exakta — a VX — advertised as being in “excellent” condition and fully operational. Unfortunately, when the camera arrived, a simple test revealed that it, too, had a shutter curtain full of pinholes. Because it came with a very desirable lens, I decided to keep it and accept a partial refund vs. returning it. And despite the first camera having not even made it to Foto Service Olbrich yet, I decided to ship the second one to Germany as well.
By late January, Frau Schönfelder had completed her work on both cameras, and they were on their way home. With the omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, there were delays in customs clearance, as well as getting the package moved within the postal system, but by mid-February — fully 18 months after I bought the Varex IIa — the camera was back, and finally in a proper, complete, working condition. (And I also had a nice, fully working VX to go with it.)
Or so I thought.
While the VX was working nicely, the Varex IIa that started all of this got just ten shots into a test roll before it broke, jamming solid. I contacted Frau Schönfelder, described the issue as best I could in German, and she indicated that it would need to be examined again. So, off to Germany it went. Again.
In late March 2022, the camera arrived back home, and as I write this update, everything seems to be in working order. Vintage cameras can be fussy, and I certainly don’t blame the shop for the problem. Like a 1950s car, or a 1950s home, or a 1950s anything else, there are simply unforeseeable things that happen; getting one part of something working can put stress on another, and so forth. But I am optimistic that after 18+ months, and 30,000 miles traveled visiting repair technicians alone, I can finally close this part of the story of this camera.
I can say that both cameras now have mechanisms and actions are silky smooth, and even the lens mount of the VX I recently bought — which was very tight when I sent it — is now perfect. Both cameras are spotless inside and out. I’ve performed speed tests on the shutters using my tester, both are accurate, and the delayed actions on both cameras operate perfectly. I am, in a word, pleased.
The Experience
I think the thing that strikes me the most when I use my Exakta is just how good, how new it still feels, despite its decades of age. Obviously I have no insight into how much or how little this camera was used, but the required services have more to do deterioration from age than deterioration from excessive use. So many of my cameras from this era don’t feel this tight and solid, and quite often, there are functions (e.g., self-timer mechanisms) that just can’t be restored to full operation.
While my Ihagee Exakta Varex IIa is crisp and fully functional, it is also, quite frankly, quirky and strange to use. As outlined earlier, setting slow shutter speeds and/or the self-timer is a challenge, but that just doesn’t arise that often. As a result, most of the time, it’s not especially weirder than any other camera, I suppose:
- Meter the scene, and set the aperture preset to the desired aperture.
- Set the desired shutter speed.
- Open the aperture all the way and compose and focus the shot.
- Turn the aperture dial to the preset, and press the shutter release.
Of course, it does get weird again when the waist-level viewfinder is on the camera. As I outlined earlier on, I love waist-level finders, but I’m also generally using them on medium format cameras where the viewfinder ground glass is a large square. Not so on the Exakta, and my usual process for using one works somewhat differently.
I’m accustomed on cameras like the Rolleiflex to popping-up the magnifier in the viewfinder to get fine focus nailed, then pushing it back out of the way to compose the image. The process is similar with the Exakta, except that it’s a little tough to deploy and close the magnifier. And because the focusing screen isn’t a flat ground glass, but a magnifier itself, there’s a “sweet spot” for being able to see the fine focus clearly; your pupil has to be aligned precisely to see it well, similarly to the way you have to do that with split-prism focusing screens with certain lenses, apertures, and/or shooting conditions.
Once you close the magnifier, and place the camera more at waist level, it’s actually fairly easy to see the image to compose it. Yes, it’s smaller than a Rolleiflex or Hasselblad’s ground glass, but it’s not difficult to see the image, especially since it’s incredibly bright (when used in daylight, anyway). In full sunshine, you can even see the image fairly well when the lens is stopped down — even as far as f/16 — as I discovered on a recent weekend of shooting. Shooting waist level also makes it easier to deal with the preset aperture business with the lens, since it’s right in your field of view as you look down at the camera.
It may go without saying that it’s all significantly easier if you just use the pentaprism finder, and it seems clear in using this camera that that’s surely the reason that waist-level finders aren’t really found anywhere but medium format cameras much; the experience of using the camera is so much easier on a 35mm SLR if you just hold the thing to your eye.
I’ve mentioned them both earlier, but the left-hand shutter release button on the front of the body, and the relatively tiny film advance lever on the top left of the camera, do take getting used to. I find myself frequently holding the camera the way I’d hold any SLR, only to remember, “Oh yeah, right. The shutter button is over there,” and I need to shift my hands around and start the composition and focusing process all over again.
The strange positioning of the film advance lever at rest is an interesting design choice as well; it nests into a dip in the left-hand shutter speed dial. From the side, that dial has an hourglass-like cross-section. Adjusting that dial then means moving the lever out of the way. It’s not ideal, honestly.
Using a preset aperture lens is also something that’s unusual, and a new habit to master, since it requires your hands to be in the correct position to orchestrate everything. An advantage of using the lens this way is that you get a depth-of-field preview every single time, just by virtue of turning the aperture ring to the preset position to take the shot.
The Accessories
Ihagee made the Exakta for such a long period of time, and with the same basic form factor throughout, that there are myriad accessories available for the basic platform. Some of them are relatively easy to find and relatively inexpensive — extension tube sets, for example — and some, as I mentioned earlier, are not so easy or cheap — such as lenses. Others are of dubious value or utility these days, including microscope attachments, stereo attachments, and so forth.
Speaking of, back in the day, Ihagee referred frequently to the camera’s value in the science field, and it seems it was an area of emphasis. You can get a feel for that from a booklet I mention in the extension tube section below.
And so, since I’ve already discussed the ever-ready case, lenses, and viewfinders above, let’s jump-in on two specific accessories:
- Extension Tubes and Close-up Bellows
I’ve never personally seen a close-up bellows for the Exakta; my owner’s manual does mention them, however. Extension tubes, on the other hand, seem readily available — and cheap. I managed to pick-up a set of Ihagee extension tubes in really excellent condition on eBay for just a few bucks. I’d gotten them before I bought my Makro-Kilar lens, and now that I have that, I wonder how much I’ll use the extension tubes. (Probably very rarely.)
In extension tubes, Ihagee offered a two-in-one ring, #187, which offers the shortest extension: 5mm. The two-in-one has a body bayonet on one side, and a lens mount on the other.
What I have is the more conventional five-piece set. It consists first of the bayonet adapters, #181 and #183. One is for the body bayonet, which you can see below on the left, and one is for the lens, which is below on the right. The body side has a clamping ring that allows whatever is screwed into it to rotate freely until locked-down. This allows you to rotate the lens into whatever position you want or need for maximum usability or access.
The three pieces in the middle are the extension tubes themselves: #184 (5mm), #185 (15mm) and #186 (30mm) respectively, left to right.
If you use only the #181 and #183, the extension is 10mm. The tubes in between, if used at all, can be used in any combination, for a maximum extension of 60mm.
Bear in-mind, you will need to correct for exposure with extension tubes. There is a booklet titled Macrophotography and Photomicrography with Exakta VX IIa that has the exposure corrections for all the combinations along with a lot of details about this accessory and many others; here is the correction table specifically for your convenience (click to enlarge). You can also find a copy of that booklet in PDF format in our Reference Library.
- Lens Hood
As I mentioned in the body of this review, at one point I thought that optical flaws were causing the spotting in my photos, so it was a priority to get a lens hood to rectify that. Of course, that wasn’t the issue at all, but the lens hood is still a nice accessory to have. The genuine Ihagee hoods seem tough to find and expensive, and I overpaid on eBay to get one. That said, it should prove nice to have. The hood screws into the filter threads, and there’s a retaining ring that tightens it down to the lens mount to keep it in the proper position. That makes it a bit tough to get on and off, honestly, but when you need a lens hood — well, you need one.
The Results
After shooting several rolls of film with the Exakta Varex IIa, I have to say that I’ve ended-up with a bit of a fondness for the camera — which you might have guessed given the extraordinary length of this particular review (it may be the longest I’ve written to date). I like its quirkiness, I appreciate its extraordinary quality, and I feel quite lucky to have an example that is in stellar condition compared to most I’ve seen. And with it now in excellent operational condition, not just cosmetic condition, I look forward to many years of use.
Is it my favorite camera? No. (That title, for the record, belongs to my Hasselblad.) Is it my favorite 35mm camera? It might well be.
Probably the biggest surprise of this camera was in fact the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar lens. I’ve already said quite a bit about it, so I won’t rehash everything here; simply put, I just like the way the images look.
Following are a range of different images shot with the camera, with different lenses.
Update: December 10, 2021
Amended the story of this camera with more recent technical issues.
Update: January 4, 2021
Included more information about the evolving story of getting the camera repaired.
Update: January 10, 2021
Repair status update.
Update: February 11, 2021
Updated to reflect that repairs are complete, and the camera is back home.
Update: March 24, 2021
Edited with an additional repair update.
