| Author | Message | ||
     WernerJB Rating: N/A |
Hi Zvi, right after WW2, at the very beginning of the economic miracle happening here, quite a number of companies emerged from literally nowhere and offered a number of relatively simple and sturdy cameras, like KING KG at Bad Liebenzell in the Black Forest region. Their early cameras were given unusual female names like Regula and Cita, had German Prontor shutters and Steinheil lenses (Cassar, 2,8/50). There were also cameras with interchangeable lenses, etc. in the sixties . Later, in the early seventies, they also offered flash units and what they wrongly considered the right "answer" to the Japanese technological invasion: cute practical 35mm "compact cameras" on the low/cheap end of the market. But even then their fate, like that of many other German competitors, was sealed. Those cameras couldn't successfully cope with the better equipped foreign brands which also had a lot more eye appeal, so they vanished from the market. But KING/Regula produce is often seen on German ebay, and I know - as I was interested in those old German cameras before I detected Japanese rangefinders - there are some fairly informative sources on the net, like http://www.mwclassic.com/articles/irregular_regulas/irregular_regulas.htm for example. I hope this helps a bit, W. |