Anyone who’s read my extraordinarily lengthy review of the Ihagee Exakta Varex IIa knows that I have a bit of a fascination with this brand of German cameras, the majority of which were produced in the post-war period behind the Iron Curtain in the former East Germany. But the Exakta family had a smaller, simpler, less costly sibling: The Ihagee Exa. After ignoring these models for a long time, I finally got the bug and secured my first example from an online charity auction.
Not long after receiving the charity auction camera and getting it cleaned-up and working (I’m jumping ahead here a bit), I saw another Exa of the same vintage on the online marketplace Mercari. I made the seller an offer, which was accepted almost immediately, and soon enough, a second Exa was in my hands.
The Back Story
The story of this camera for me actually begins not with the camera, but with Exakta lenses. One of the best aspects of the Exakta is that Ihagee never made its own lenses, but rather, depended on an ecosystem of lens makers both in East Germany (Ludwig, Meyer, Carl Zeiss Jena) as well as West Germany (Schneider, Isco, Steinheil, Kilfitt, Enna, etc.), along with various makers globally (Angénieux, Soligor, etc.). In contrast, with the 35mm SLRs most people are familiar with (Pentax, Nikon, Minolta, Canon, etc.), the vast majority of the lenses were made by the camera makers themselves. Sure, Vivitar, Tokina, Sigma and others made aftermarket lenses for those cameras too, but typically, they were then (and still are now) usually regarded as secondary, less expensive, and often inferior choices to those of the original manufacturers.
Because of the great variety of lenses available, I’ve long been wanting to experiment with and compare the results of standard lenses for the Exakta (those in the range of about 45mm to 60mm in focal length), having been inspired by Czech photographer Jaroslav Kadanka. Jaroslav had reached out to me by email, and over time, shared the results of his own experiments with Exakta lenses. I wanted to do the same with my own lenses, perhaps acquiring a few others along the way. (I plan to do some side-by-side testing and write about the results here at some point.)
And so it was when I saw what would become my first Exa. As it was sporting a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f/2.8 50mm lens that appeared to be in good condition, it caught my attention immediately. The camera itself didn’t appear to be in very good nick, and since I wasn’t really pursuing adding an Exa to my camera collection, I figured I had little to lose since the total price was no more than the typical price of the lens alone, if purchased separately.
The fact that this particular Tessar lens doesn’t necessarily have rave reviews didn’t really dissuade me. Blogger Richard Haw has an in-depth analysis of the lens and instructions for repairing one, where he evaluates it and describes in great detail its many supposed shortcomings, with photographic evidence to go along with the narrative. While I appreciate Mr. Haw going to the effort to evaluate and describe in detail a great variety of vintage lenses, I’ve noticed about myself that I really just can’t be bothered much with technical minutia like chromatic or spherical aberration, barrel distortion, presence or lack of coma, and other such details. My way of evaluating a lens is far more pragmatic, and far more subjective: Do I like the images a lens produces, or do I not? For me, it’s that simple.
As for the second camera, I bought it solely because I so enjoyed the process of cleaning and restoring the first one. It sported the very basic E. Ludwig Meritar 50mm f/2.9 lens — another lens I wanted to try. The Meritar is a simple triplet design, nothing special then or now, and often the entry-level choice to go with the Exa line. While many photographers thumb their noses at triplets, I’m not one of them. On the contrary, a well-designed, well-manufactured triplet can produce extraordinarily good results, and any number of images I’ve personally taken demonstrate that. (My Yashica-D has a great example of well-performing triplet; click to read that review and you can see the images for yourself.) Whether the Meritar is a particularly good triplet, well, I aimed to find out. (At least one of the images at the end of this review was shot with the Meritar, and I’m not sure I can discern that image from the others.)
The Camera
The Ihagee Exa was produced in four major versions, three of which used the Exakta lens mount, and one which did not. The Exakta mount versions were the original Exa (1951 to 1962, and sometimes referred to by collectors as the Exa 0), the Exa I (1962 to 1977), and the Exa II (1960 to 1969). You can see from the dates that the Exa II overlaps both the original Exa and the Exa I that eventually replaced the original. There was also an Exa version that used the M42 lens mount. Labeled as the Exa Ib and Exa Ic, it was produced from 1977 to 1987.
It’s worth pointing out that these cameras have some variations in naming. Some of the Exa Ia models were labeled VX100 or Exakta 100 (despite not being full Exakta cameras), while some Exa II models were VX500 or Exakta 500.
The original Exa had six major variations over its lifespan, and both of my examples are Version 1.4 cameras (in Wrotniak’s star notation), and based on serial numbers, were probably produced in 1956 or early 1957. Outwardly, the original Exa cameras — sometimes referred to as the “Exa 24x36mm” (in its owner’s manual, and by Werner Wurst in his book The Exakta Manual) — resemble their bigger, more sophisticated siblings (the Exakta cameras). They have the same trapezoidal form; the front trim plate is quite similar in appearance; they take the same interchangeable viewfinders (waist level, prism, or metering prism); they take the same “Exakta mount” lenses (up to 120mm non-telephoto, and up to 135mm telephoto anyway — otherwise they get vignettes in the corners); and the shutter release is in the same place. Apart from that, however, there are notable differences.
While the Exakta’s dual-knob, 27-position shutter controls are one of the markers of that camera, the original Exa has a unique lever-based shutter speed control offering just five options: B (bulb), 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, and 1/150 of a second. The only other controls on the camera are the rewind and advance knobs, and a clutch release to allow the film to be rewound. The Exa is also physically more compact, and perhaps slightly less comfortable to handle as a result, honestly.
The limited choice of speeds is a result of the camera’s shutter design. While the Exakta has a horizontally-oriented fabric shutter curtain, the original Exa uses a vertically-oriented clamshell design, where the reflex mirror itself forms half the shutter, and a secondary metal plate forms the other half. When first designed, the top speed was 1/250 of a second, but it proved unreliable, and was lowered to 1/150. While well suited to the slower films that dominated the 1950s, the speed range seems limiting today, and the camera is at its best when the film speeds are ISO 100 or slower. Many standard lenses for the Exa are limited to f/16 for the smallest aperture, which means that the camera doesn’t operate fast enough to use even ISO 200 (let alone ISO 400) film at box speed in full daylight conditions. I personally have only ever loaded ISO 100 film in mine, and generally skip the exposure meter in favor of “Sunny 16” shooting — I keep the speed lever on 1/100, and use the generally agreed apertures of f/16 for full sun, f/11 for partly cloudy conditions, f/8 for mostly cloudy conditions, f/5.6 for overcast skies, and f/4 for sunrise and sunset. The results have been quite good.
While not germane to this review, It’s worth mentioning that the later Exa models (Exa II and its variants) dispensed with the clamshell shutter, and use a conventional fabric shutter curtain with a more normal range of speeds. Unlike the Exakta, however, the Exa II curtain runs vertically. Having disassembled one of them, the shutter mechanism is bulky and clunky, and I have yet to encounter one of them that actually still works without service.
Like the Exaktas of the same period, the Exa has a body manufactured with a mix of cast aluminum (the body itself) and stamped steel (the back door and other parts), with some chrome plating and the use of coated paper leatherette coverings to dress-up the result.
I seem to see the Exa primarily with a waist level viewfinder, and as I wrote in my Exakta Varex IIa review, it’s an interesting experience using a small waist level finder on a 35mm camera. As I mentioned above, however, the camera can accept a prism finder if not equipped with one, and they are not especially difficult to source on the used market; arguably, they do make the camera a little easier to use (albeit less stealthy).
In sum, the cameras are in a word quite simple — in design, function, and operation. While much simpler and less expensive than a full Exakta, the cameras were not what I’d consider to be “cheap” in terms of price when new. Browsing vintage catalogs and price lists, a full Exa outfit with Meritar lens, flash, and case would set you back nearly US$1,000 in today’s money (mid-2022). Even the camera alone with a Meritar lens pushed US$800. Upgrade to the Zeiss Tessar I mentioned earlier, and it’s close to US$1,300 for the body and lens (again, in today’s money, after adjusting for inflation using US government price index data).
The Experience
Both of the two Exa cameras were sourced online. As noted earlier, the first from a charity auction, and the second, from an online seller. Neither camera arrived in “ready-to-use” condition, and as a result, both had to spend some time on my workbench. In the end, they both needed precisely the same work done. In short:
- A good, thorough cleaning, including partial disassembly of the camera
- Some exterior restoration work
- A new baffle around the shutter speed lever
- Polishing of the lens barrels
- Removal, cleaning, and lubrication of the friction bushing on the take-up side of the transport
That last item, however, was not immediately apparent as a newbie to working on these cameras, but I would soon learn its importance. I’ll come back to that point.
In both cases, the shutters worked “out of the box,” and speed testing showed they were within specification. Clearly the unique clamshell shutter and its simplicity was a plus, especially compared to the troublesome shutter curtains on the Exakta cameras, which clearly (based on my experience anyway) never survive in their original condition. But while they both worked, they didn’t exactly look the part, with dirt and grime aplenty, and light damage to their leatherette — the first Exa’s from old school Dymo embossed labels that had been applied to the back, and the second from Scotch tape that had been stuck on, and then partially removed from the back long ago.
Cleaning was straightforward, and removing the dual top plates, one on each side, allowed for more careful cleaning of those areas, as well as the knurled knobs for winding and rewinding the film. Opening-up the photographer’s left top plate revealed that the baffle around the shutter speed lever in both cameras had deteriorated. The original appeared to be a velvet-like material glued to and held in place by a small metal bracket under the plate. I cut felt strips to size to use as a replacement. The baffle doesn’t need to be light tight; its function seems to be solely to keep dirt and gunk out of the camera body.
With both cameras, I removed the lens mount and front trim plate to allow for better cleaning and polishing of those areas too.
With the leatherette having some surface damage on both cameras, I wanted to restore their appearance as best I could without replacing the original material — which is a thick, textured, coated paper. The first Exa required some of the material to first be glued back down; peeling edges are not uncommon with old camera coverings. With that done, and a surface cleaning complete, I dressed damaged spots with black leather dye. While the material isn’t leather, the dye nevertheless soaks in, and restores its color. The back panel of the first Exa was still in quite poor condition, and to fully restore the finish, I brushed-on a roughly 50/50 mix of matte and gloss and acrylic medium from Golden Artist Colors, a manufacturer of paint and related materials for fine art painters. Mediums are thin, easily worked, clear acrylic coatings used for extending or thinning artist paints, and a mix of the two sheen levels provided a finish that matched the original sheen of the leatherette. The acrylic coating sealed the damaged areas where the original material’s coating had been pulled-off when the plastic labels were removed, and in the end, there’s no sign the the pesky plastic embossed labels were ever there.
The final step was carefully polishing the aluminum barrels of the lenses of the cameras. For this, I use Blue Magic, a metal polish commonly sold in the United States at auto parts retailers. While it does a great job, it requires extraordinary care, as it can very easily get under focus rings or seep into other places you really don’t want it to go; using it very sparingly is strongly advised. The black residue of polishing can also stick into engraved areas on the lens (distance or aperture numbers, etc.), which has to be dealt with separately; I usually use a very slightly damp toothbrush.
With these steps completed on the first Exa, it was time to test the camera, which I customarily do by bulk loading a 15-exposure roll into a recycled 135 film cassette. With that done, I set about shooting that test roll. It was only when I was supposedly done shooting the roll that I discovered that the film had torn apart in the transport, yielding no usable images whatsoever. Puzzled, I merely loaded another roll, and tried again. And again, the film broke during transport.
At this point, one might assume I’d realize that there was an issue that needed further investigation, but no, I assumed I had done something wrong, and tried again. And, the film broke… Again.
Still puzzled, I posted about the issue in the Photrio forums. But with the camera on my bench and me poking around, no less than 15 minutes after I posted the message, I discovered my own answer: A stuck friction bushing. This part is screwed to the shaft of the take-up side of the transport. It’s essentially a rounded fork that mates with the film take-up spool. The general idea is that it’s allowed to slip, so as the film is taken-up by the spool, and the distance between the take-up point and a geared drive shaft changes, the take-up remains tight, but not so tight that the film breaks. The bushing, however, was not slipping, but remaining firmly in-place. The tension dragged the film across the gear teeth, causing it to tear at the film’s sprockets, which ultimately in turn resulted in a complete tear of the film side-to-side.
Removing the bushing, I cleaned it in naphtha, lubricated it, and screwed it back in-place — confirming that it then slipped easily. Another roll of test film later, and the operation of the camera was confirmed. While the second Exa’s bushing appeared to slip, I nevertheless removed, cleaned, and lubricated it as well.
Shooting the Exa couldn’t be simpler. With the limited range of shutter speeds, as I said above, I found it easiest to set exposure using the Sunny 16 method, which is quick and easy. Focusing using the tiny waist level viewfinder isn’t the most enjoyable experience, but the upside is that you can be somewhat stealthy about your photography when you use it; most people would have no idea what you’re doing, and many people these days might not even recognize the Exa as a camera for that matter. The waist level finder also makes it very easy to shoot at low angles — i.e., cat’s eye view shots — as well as to shoot upward (windmills, flags on a flagpole, etc.) much more comfortably than with a typical prism finder.
It’s notable that the shutter on the Exa is extremely quiet, barely louder than the leaf shutter of a folding camera (such as a Kodak Retina IIIC for instance). You do hear the very slightly click of the shutter action in most cases, but in others (noisy environments) you might wonder if it even worked. If the advance knob moves, however, you’ll know that it did, since the knob is locked until the shutter is released, and additionally, this double exposure prevention function cannot be overridden. As a result, if you can take a picture, the film was advanced and the shutter cocked, and if you can wind the film, the shutter has been released.
Once the friction bushing was working properly, I found the transport to be exceptionally smooth and simple to operate. While the knob-based advance isn’t as convenient to use as a lever advance, perhaps, it’s not by any means difficult.
There are really only two challenges to shooting with an Exa. First, the placement of the shutter release on the front of the body, on the photographer’s left. If you’re a lefty, that’s probably not as big a challenge as for right handers, but the position on the front isn’t really an ergonomically ideal spot in my opinion. Perhaps it’s just because I’m used to the release being on the top housing on the vast majority of SLRs, but whatever the reason, reaching it always feels awkward. On the larger Exakta camera body, it seems easier to manage; on the much smaller Exa body, it felt even more challenging to reach it without feeling like the camera was about to slip out of your hands. I’d recommend it on the Exakta as well, but some sort of neck strap is a virtual necessity on the Exa.
The second challenge is setting the aperture, and this isn’t an issue with the Exa as much as with vintage lenses for the Exakta mount. Unlike the SLRs that came later on (Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, Canon, etc.), there is no inherent linkage between the aperture setting on the lens, and the camera body. As a result, many lenses for the Exakta and Exa cameras are either manual, or of the preset type. Manual lenses require you to manually open-up the lens aperture for focusing and composition (so there’s the maximum amount of light entering the viewfinder), then manually set it for the proper exposure before taking a photo — not unlike shooting a large format camera. Preset lenses improve this slightly by allowing you to preset the desired aperture ahead of time using a secondary ring on the lens barrel, which then allows you to close down the lens to the preset point with a simple twist; you can then shoot solely by feel without taking your eye off the viewfinder, or your subject.
There are other lenses that have a semi-automatic or automatic aperture mechanism. The semi-automatics require winding the mechanism using a lever on the lens barrel; the automatics do not. In both cases, the aperture can be set ahead of time, but is held in the wide open position for focusing and composition. A protrusion from the base of the lens extends over the top of the shutter release button on the body. You then press a release button on the lens itself to take a photo. The action of pressing the button on the lens activates the aperture stop-down, while then physically depressing the shutter release on the camera body underneath it. It’s a clever solution that makes the Exakta and Exa cameras behave more like modern SLRs, and it makes shooting much easier, and less error-prone.
The main issue for me with manual and preset lenses is just remembering to stop the lens down before taking a photo, and there’s invariably at least one shot per roll (often more) where I forget, then have to take a second image with the proper exposure settings. While this comes naturally on a large format camera, on a 35mm SLR, it’s just very much a habit not to have to think about it, especially since the Exakta and Exa cameras are the only SLRs I own where this is an issue.
The wide array of lenses for the Exakta and Exa platform constitutes much of the appeal of the cameras. Introduced as an amateur-focused, lower-cost alternative to the costly Exakta, it makes sense that many Exa cameras sport relatively austere lenses, such as the Meritar I mentioned earlier. One way to get the most out of an Exa is simply upgrading its lens. The best choice is one with an automatic aperture function, and a more sophisticated optical design than a triplet. Some of the photos posted below were shot with an Isco-Göttingen Westrocolor 50mm f/1.9 lens I recently bought online. I paid a whopping US$150 for it, but only after carefully researching things and seeing the incredibly good results that the lens was capable of, it truly brings out the best in an otherwise very simple camera.
While the myriad lenses are a draw to the Exakta and Exa, scarcity and cost are definitely limiting factors. Standard lenses are readily available and not unreasonable in price, but not all are top-drawer performers. You’ll commonly see not only the Meritar, but the Meyer-Optik Domiplan — also a triplet — and the Carl Zeiss Jena (CZJ) Tessar (mentioned earlier) which is a four-element, three-group design that’s a notable improvement on the triplet formula. The CZJ Pancolar is also commonly seen, and was a standard fixture on the later cameras. Upgrading to truly great performers, like my Westrocolor, will obviously require an investment that overshadows the cost of not only the Exa, but perhaps many an Exakta as well.
As for other highly sought-after lenses, like the Steinheil München (Munich) Auto-Macro-Quin* lenses (Quinar, Tele-Quinar, Quinon, and Quinaron), they’re exceptionally difficult to find, and when you do, they’re outrageously expensive. They’re not the only examples, but using these Steinheil lenses as a sample, the 100mm f/2.8 Macro-Quinar runs US$1,000 and up judging by the ones available online as I write this review, while the 35mm f/2.8 Macro-Quinaron is fetching US$800. That puts them into a league (price-wise) with some truly top-of-class glass for film cameras; Carl Zeiss lenses for the Hasselblad V-System come to mind as an example, and I’m not quite sure who can justify such prices for shooting with an Exakta or Exa.
Just one reminder of something I pointed-out above — you’re limited to 120mm of focal length with the Exa; longer, and there’ll be vignetting, a point I proved testing my 135mm Telisar lens with the Exa. While a telephoto lens that should theoretically have worked according to the book I mentioned previously, it instead did vignette along the top of the image — clearly showing interference from the design and action of the shutter.
The Accessories
I covered accessories in my review of the Exakta Varex IIa, and many of them will work fine with the Exa as well. In particular, a prism finder for the Exa will make the camera more enjoyable for most users, and I highly recommend adding one of them to your gear bag. An even better option? Buy a second Exa or Exakta that already has a prism finder, and swap them back and forth as desired.
The Results
As I mentioned above, the results you get with an Exa (like those taken with an Exakta) have much less to do with the camera than the lenses you use on the camera. As a result, these images say more about their respective lenses than anything else, but regardless, they prove that the simple, compact, easy-to-use little Exa can hold its own against myriad contenders — as long as you put the right glass up front.
