Ebner camera

My Ebner 6x4.5cm camera

During my trip to Tokyo, Japan, a couple of weeks ago, I was in Kitamura's flagship store, looking at their "bargain" cameras, which in itself is a treasure trove of used cameras, when I spotted a brown Bakelite camera sitting on one of their shelves. The camera was a "folding" style camera. Still, I had never seen a camera like it, so immediately I wanted to see it, and with any luck, take it home with me, provided the price wasn't outrageous. I scanned the camera price and converted it from Yen to US dollars; it wasn't outrageous, so I wanted to see it and learn more.

 The things that caught my eye at first was the beautiful, rich brown color, the wonderful pebbled texture of the body, and the very sleek design. To me, the camera just sang to me in its design. Since my eyes almost always go to anything "colored" when I look at cameras, it reminded me of the Coronet Vogue. Then, scanning the shelf below, they also found the Coronet Vogue. which I had seen in a few different flea markets in both Paris and London, but the asking price was always too high (in my opinion) for the camera, so I passed them up.

Back side with beautiful pebble finish on the Ebner camera

 At this point in my camera search, there were 3-4 cameras I wanted to look at, so I went up to one of the salespeople on the floor and showed them the items I was interested in. Very patiently, he pulled the 4 items from the shelves and placed them on a camera mat on one of the glass display cases in the shop.

 Opening the Ebner camera first, I hadn't seen it before and don't recall it in McKeown's Camera Guide. I don't have the few hundred thousand cameras memorized. It wasn't until I opened the back of the camera and noticed the name "Ebner" that I realized the camera's brand. It still hadn't jogged my memory or sounded familiar.

Similarities of the Ebner and Coronet Vogue cameras.

 As I looked over the camera, the shutter worked, the aperture slid around the lens and changed size, and the lens was fairly clean. It didn't have mold, mildew, or fungus as I shone a penlight through the lens, and I didn't see pinholes in the bellows, so all in all, the camera was a "keeper" to me.

 The Coronet Vogue camera had some issues. It had a replacement black bellows rather than the original brown matching bellows, and the side struts of the camera didn't work properly. But the camera was inexpensive, and the shutter worked, so I believe at some point later this year I will write about it. To me, the similarity in the design and style of both the Ebner and Coronet Vogue cameras is striking.

 The similarities make sense to me, especially since Ebner stopped producing cameras in 1935. Still, other camera companies, like Pontiac and Gallus, produced very similar cameras with the same sleek design. I'm confident that since the Coronet Vogue was introduced in 1936, they recognized that this sleek, Bakelite camera design would benefit their sales, and they produced it.

History:

 Albert Ebner & Co. was a small but interesting German manufacturer that moved from audio and electrical products into cameras during the early 1930s. Albert Ebner, born in 1891 in Bad Cannstatt, had already founded earlier companies before his name became associated with the camera firm that collectors remember today.

Portrait of Albert Ebner

 The company's background was in turntable motors, gramophone parts, and related household electrical goods. After earlier business setbacks and reorganizations, Ebner returned to Bad Cannstatt and formed a new Albert Ebner & Co., often abbreviated AECO, which broadened into vacuum cleaners, fans, and other electrical products before experimenting with cameras.

 Ebner's camera output was very limited. The firm produced only two folding models: a 6x9 cm camera on 120 film and a smaller 4.5x6 cm model on Kodak 620 film, both made around 1933 to 1935. These cameras had no special model names beyond their image size, which makes them especially plain in naming but distinctive in construction.

 What set them apart was their design. Both cameras used a marbled brown Bakelite body, a material associated with the radio and record-player industries, and they paired that shell with a Compur leaf shutter and lenses from makers such as Meyer-Gorlitz. That gives the Ebner cameras a streamlined Art Deco look that feels more industrially designed than mass-market consumer.

German advertising.

 The larger 6x9 version used standard 120 film, while the 4.5x6 version used 620 film, an unusual choice for a German maker of the time. Collectors also note that the cameras were sold mostly in Germany and that production was brief, with the company apparently ending camera manufacture by 1935. Because so few were made, surviving examples are relatively scarce today.

 Ebner's camera venture did not last long. Still, it fits a broader pattern of early 20th-century firms adapting existing expertise in Bakelite and mechanical assembly to camera production. After the camera period ended, Albert Ebner's business life continued in audio through the later Perpetuum-Ebner merger. In contrast, the cameras remained a short-lived sideline that now attracts collectors and historians.

My Camera:

 My Ebner 6x4.5cm camera is 4.25" tall with the retractable viewfinder down, and 5" tall with the viewfinder in the upright, viewing position. It's also 5.5 wide and 1.25" deep with the lens retracted, and 4" with the lens extended and in the normal taking position. The camera weighs 1 pound 0.7 ounces without film loaded inside. 

To open the Ebner camera, on the top of the camera is a button between the retractable front viewfinder, which pulls up from the camera body to produce a vertical rectangle. and a small pbar with a ball on the end used as the rear portion of the viewfinder. This bar is also retracted into the camera body. Once the button is pressed, the front door housing the lens, bellows, and shutter springs from the camera body.

The Ebner I own has a Meyer-Goerlitz 7.5cm F/4.5 lens (SN 625604), with a Compur shutter, ranging from 1/300 to 1 second, plus "T" and "B". There were several different lens and shutter combinations for the camera. The aperture range is from F/4.5 to 22. 

 Setting the shutter speed is done by turning a ring on the outer portion of the lens, and the aperture is set by sliding a lever with a pointing end to the desired aperture setting under the lens. Also, the shutter is cocked by one lever at the top of the shutter and released by another lever on the side of the shutter. Focusing the lens is done by rotating the lens itself to the desired focus distance in meters, as seen on the top of the lens.

To close the camera for transport, there is a bar at the bottom of the lens bed, just in front of the "Ebner" plate. Press these bars towards the camera body; the lens board releases, allowing you to tilt the board back up and into the camera body. It will click when the lens board is locked into position.

Opening the film back to load film is done by sliding the locking lever, which is located under the camera's strap. Once unlocked, you can slide the door open to reveal the camera's film chamber. Once opened, you'll see the vertical format 6x4.5 film area. The new film goes on the right side of the camera, and you'll transfer the empty spool from the right side to the left, where the film's winding wheel is located. My camera didn't have an empty spool, so I needed to supply the camera with one.

  Looking at the film holders' pins, the camera takes 620 film, but I accidentally loaded the camera's take-up chamber with 120 film, and it fit. Generally, when I try to put 120 in a 620 camera, the spools don't fit, or they don't turn because the pins are too small to grab the 120 spool. Let's see if I can load a roll of 120 film in the camera. Interestingly, this camera: the 120 film fits a bit snug, but the film advance engaged with the spool, and the film wound smoothly.

Since the camera is 6x4.5cm, with two red windows on the back, this symbolizes that you start with the number one in the first window, take your photo, and then wind the film until the number one shows up in the second window. You do this with the whole roll, which ends with the number eight showing in the second window, giving you sixteen images per roll of film.

 Once the film was loaded in the camera and the "start" arrows were showing, I closed the back of the camera, and my daughter, her dog, Bean. I went for a walk along the Columbia River and took photos with the camera. The camera is very "pocketable" and travels extremely well.

 Let's see how the images turned out.

 

The Results:

 The results aren't bad, but not the sharpest images either, especially compared to the Kolar Kola camera. I may have missed the focus distance, but most of the photos are sharp enough for an 8x10. Here are some of the images I took while walking the Columbia River with my daughter and Bean, her dog. 

Conclusion:

 There are several things I really like about the camera. Still, the thing I enjoyed most about this camera is its thinness when traveling. It's so thin compared to other medium-format cameras; for me, it makes it fun to use. Not being bulky or clumsy and being fairly lightweight make this camera a real pleasure to carry around.

 The brown pebble finish is also a bonus in my opinion, adding more to the camera than leather and chrome alone. It has a very appealing feel and firmness that make the camera fun to hold.

Designers in the 1930s were still in the Art Deco period. They had a real sense of classical design, which they implemented in their products. It makes me even more want to buy a 3D printer to experiment with designs and textures, which I feel are lacking in today's designs.  

 Thank you for taking the time to learn a bit about this very classic and rare camera made in Stuttgart, Germany, in the early to mid-1930s.

 I'd love to hear from you, so if you have a comment or one of your own, please share it with us here.

 Here are my other Camera Reviews.

 Cuny's Camera and Photos is my online eBay store where you might find one (or many) of the cameras I've reviewed, along with other camera and photo items I've picked up or hoarded over the many years in the business.

 Until next week, please be safe.

Kolar Kola camera

My Kolar Kola camera

I didn’t write a blog post last week because I was in Tokyo camera shopping and hoping to find something odd and unusual to write about in the coming weeks. I was successful in that search, and this week’s camera is one I bought at one of my favorite used camera stores in Japan, Kitamura Camera in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Kitamura has several locations, but this was their flagship store.

 Kitamura Camera is an impressive multi-floor store with just about everything a camera lover could want, from a photo studio to film sales and processing. The most impressive parts for me were the two used-camera floors. The fourth floor had an outstanding collection of rare Leica cameras and lenses, Nikon rangefinders and lenses, Hasselblad gear, and other medium format cameras and lenses. The third floor was where I spent the most time. That was their bargain floor, with many lesser-known cameras and others that were not quite perfect.

 They also had Leicas and Nikons there, but some had small defects or were not fully functional. These were not the kind of “junk” cameras you often see in used camera stores, where lenses have fungus and shutters no longer fire. These were cameras most people would probably buy for parts, but Kitamura still presented them in a much more appealing way.

 That third floor is where I found this week’s camera: an odd cube-shaped camera called the Kola. I had never heard of it before. When I checked it out, the lens was clean, the shutter fired at all speeds, the film spools were still in the camera, and the price was very reasonable.

Back side of my Kolar Kola camera

 At first glance, I thought it might be a 127 film camera because of the film spools, but the frame size was marked 24 x 36, which meant it was a 35mm camera. That made me think it may have used paper-backed 35mm film, similar to the way some Bolta cameras were loaded.

It was certainly unusual enough to catch my attention, so I bought it along with a few other treasures from the shop. I planned to do the research later, but for the moment I set it aside and kept exploring the store. I knew I would be back before leaving Japan.

 Later that day, back at my hotel, the first camera I pulled out was the Kola. I wanted to know more about it right away. I soon learned that the camera was made in Czechoslovakia by a small and relatively obscure camera maker in the 1930s.

 Many examples I found online show Kola cameras in a 4 x 4 cm format on 127 film. Some earlier versions have a barrel lens, and the lenses I found were usually marked f/3.5 or f/4.5. I also found references to a paper-backed 35mm version. In my research, I saw that some Kola cameras used special 35mm cassettes and a different geared spool, but that spool arrangement did not match the camera I own.

 Here is a little more about the maker.

History

Václav Kolář was a significant, if short-lived, figure in prewar Czechoslovak camera manufacturing. Based in the Modřany district of Prague, Kolář operated his workshop during a period of experimentation and innovation in European photography. In the 1930s, small makers like Kolář were trying to compete with German giants such as Zeiss Ikon and Voigtländer.

 Kolář’s history appears to have been one of rapid innovation followed by financial difficulty. His company focused on precision engineering and often produced cameras that were mechanically sophisticated for their price point. However, the economic pressure of the Great Depression and fierce competition from Germany eventually led to bankruptcy in the mid-1930s. Today, his cameras are considered hidden gems of Central European camera history, prized for their rarity and distinctive design.

 His product line was surprisingly varied for such a small workshop. One of his best-known cameras was the Kola-Diar, a box-shaped roll-film camera. It was designed to be compact and practical, often using 127 film or unperforated 35mm film, which later gave it a bit of a spy-camera reputation among collectors. It featured a collapsing lens mount and a rugged build that stood out from the folding cameras of the period.

 Another notable model was the Kola-Flex, a twin-lens reflex camera made largely of Bakelite. Unlike many pseudo-TLR cameras of the era, the Kola-Flex often featured gear-linked lenses, allowing for more accurate focusing through the top viewfinder. Kolář also produced the Kolex, a traditional folding plate camera, and the Box-Reflex, an entry-level Bakelite model. These cameras were typically fitted with lenses bearing Kolář’s own names, such as Rekolar, Kolyt, and Kolar-Anastigmat, and were often paired with reliable German shutters like the Vario or Compur.

 Kolář’s legacy lies in his pioneering work in the Czech tradition of fine mechanical camera building. His designs showed that Czechoslovak workshops could produce serious photographic equipment, helping lay the groundwork for the later nationalized industry that would produce the Flexaret series.

My Camera

My Kolar Kola camera measures 3.5 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and 2.75 inches deep. It weighs 1 pound, 1.7 ounces, and has serial number 740 stamped into the back of the camera. It is fitted with a Schneider Xenon 5cm f/2.9 lens in a Comur-Rapid shutter. The shutter speeds range from 1/500 second to 1 second, with T and B settings for timed and bulb exposures. There is a cable release socket next to the shutter cocking lever on the top of the shutter, and the shutter release is positioned low at about the 8 o’clock position.

In my research, I found that many Kola cameras use a helical focus system mounted behind the shutter mechanism, but mine is a front-element focus model, meaning the lens itself rotates. Focus distances are marked on the outer ring of the lens in meters.

On top of the camera, from left to right, there is a large winding knob that advances the film clockwise. In the middle is a very small optical viewfinder, which is especially hard for me to use since I wear glasses. To the right of that are two small raised openings that can accept a cold shoe, much like the Nagle Pupille camera. An accessory rangefinder can be mounted there for critical focus.

 To the right of the cold-shoe area is the frame counter, located inside the knob that holds the film in place. Behind the frame counter is a small round indicator attached to the wheel inside the film chamber. As the film moves across that wheel during winding, the indicator turns, and each full rotation advances the frame counter.

The more I look at this camera, the more similarities I see between the Kola and the Nagel Pupille camera. Both have helical-focus variations, both offer an accessory shoe for a rangefinder, and both have a solid, well-made feel.

 To open the back and load film, there are two clips on either side of the camera that hold the back to the body. Pull those clips back, and the rear cover slides off, exposing the film chamber.

This is where the camera becomes especially interesting. There were already two spools inside, and they were just a little shorter than a 127 spool. The exposed frame area is 24 x 36, so the camera is definitely a 35mm model. My first idea was to use 127 backing paper with bulk-loaded 35mm film, but when I tried the 127 spools, they actually fit into the camera. Not perfectly, since the winding and holding knobs sit slightly higher, perhaps by about 1/16 inch, but they did fit.

I removed the 35mm spools that came with the camera and loaded it with 127 film I already had. On the back of the camera there is a red window, so I hoped I would be able to see the numbers pass by as I took pictures. If not, I could use the frame counter and the rotating wheel to estimate the proper spacing for 35mm-sized exposures on a roll of 127 film. I knew there would be some waste because the 127 film is wider than the image area the camera is using.

On the bottom of the camera there is a hinged door that allows the spools to be inserted into the body. The 35mm spools that came with the camera are too wide to fit through that opening, so if I were to use paper-backed 35mm film, I would need to open the hinged door to get the spools inside. The door is secured by a sliding latch that locks it in place.

Once the 127 film was loaded, I slid the back onto the camera body, latched the two clips, and headed out to make some photographs.

Results

With a roll of 127 film loaded, I walked through the neighborhood taking photos of the usual subjects to see how the Kola performed. At first, I guessed at the distance between frames, and that worked well enough. The frame counter behaved exactly as expected.

 Here are the results from my neighborhood walk.

Conclusion

WOW! I was very impressed with the sharpness and ease of use of this camera. The viewfinder is small and a bit difficult to use, especially for me since I wear glasses, but the sharpness of the images and the smooth film advance made up for the camera’s quirks.

 It would have been better to shoot 35mm film, since that would have avoided wasting image area the way 127 film does here. However, the hassle of paper-backed 35mm film, plus the unusual spool setup, made the wasted film area easier to accept.

 I am still puzzled by this particular Kola. It has a faster f/2.9 lens than the f/3.5 or f/4.5 lenses I found in my research, and it is also a 35mm version with spools that differ from those that came with the camera. That mystery makes it even more interesting to me.

 I am really happy with the results this Kola camera produced, and I am glad I found such a special camera on my trip to Tokyo.

 Here are my other Camera Reviews.

 Stop by Cuny’s Cameras and Photos to see what I have for sale in my eBay online store. It is filled with camera accessories, and you may even find a camera or two that I have reviewed in the past.

 Thank you for taking the time to learn about this small powerhouse of a camera made by a company in Czechoslovakia for such a short period of time. I am very happy to have one in my collection.

 Until next week, please be safe.